Cromnibus Authorization: The Spies Have It

About a year ago, Congress was outraged when it found out that the NSA was likely spying on them, or at best, was treating our elected officials the same as all other Americans. One can infer from that statement that they are 'monitored' just as you and I are.

Yesterday, the House approved (and the Senate is ready to approve) the 'Cromnibus' funding package of appropriations bills, including the bill authorizing intelligence spending.

That bill includes rules under which 'incidentally acquired communications' are to be handled; here's some of the language that has raised the attention and ire of several House members under Section 309. Procedures for the retention of incidentally acquired communications (all underlining added):

Under the 'Definitions' section:

Covered communication. The term covered communication means any nonpublic telephone or electronic communication acquired without the consent of a person who is a party to the communication, including communications in electronic storage.

Under the 'Requirement to Adopt' section:

Not later than 2 years after the date of the enactment of this Act each head of an element of the intelligence community shall adopt procedures approved by the Attorney General for such element that ensure compliance with the requirements of paragraph (3).

And, here's the gist of Paragraph 3:

(A) The procedures...shall apply to any intelligence collection activity not otherwise authorized by court order (including an order or certification issued by a court established issued by a court established under..the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (this is the FISA Court we hear about), subpoena, or similar legal process that is reasonably anticipated to result in the acquisition of a covered communication to or from a Unites States person and shall permit the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of covered communications subject to the limitations in subparagraph (B).

Subparagraph (B) says that:

...A covered communication shall not be retained in excess of 5 years unless

(i) the communication has been affirmatively determined, in whole or in part, to constitute foreign intelligence or counterintelligence or is necessary to understand or assess foreign intelligence or counterintelligence;

(ii) the communication is reasonably believed to constitute evidence of a crime and is retained by a law enforcement agency;

(iii) the communication is enciphered or reasonably believed to have a secret meaning;

(iv) all parties to the communication are reasonably believed to be non-United States persons;

(v) retention is necessary to protect against an imminent threat to human life, in which case both the nature of the threat and the information to be retained shall be reported to the congressional intelligence committees not later than 30 days after the date such retention is extended under this clause;

(vi) retention is necessary for technical assurance or compliance purposes, including a court order or discovery obligation, in which case access to information retained for technical assurance or compliance purposes shall be reported to the congressional intelligence committees on an annual basis; or

(vii) retention for a period in excess of 5 years is approved by the head of the element of the intelligence community responsible for such retention, based on a determination that retention is necessary to protect the national security of the United States...(in which case several reporting requirements apply)

So: right now, stuff they accidentally trip over when spying on us can already be held and disseminated for five years, and starting in 2016, stuff they trip over accidentally when spying on us can be kept longer than five years, and shared for reasons other than national security?

And when there's a need to protect against, or prevent from happening, an imminent threat to human life - that's one that is likely to occur at any moment mind you, the info can be retained and handed off to law enforcement for more than five years, but Congress doesn't need to know about it for 30 days or so after the fact. Hopefully the information would be passed off before the imminent threat became a reality, but if it takes two years to implement changes in document retention procedures, I'm not confident on that one.

If you accept that spying on Americans is necessary, must you also accept that 'incidentally acquired' information, gathered without warrant or approval, from a person who is not a subject of an authorized search is necessary?  And must you also accept that this information can just sit around in some basement somewhere?

About a year ago, Congress was outraged when it found out that the NSA was likely spying on them...

Wondering, on Wednesday (v14)

Yeah, so we got a little weather today in the Syracuse area.  We cannot complain, of course - that right is reserved for those who survived the 7-foot snowpocalypse that hit many of the towns near Buffalo last month.  It does, however, leave me wondering, on Wednesday about a few things. For example:

Yesterday in my news feed on Facebook there was a map of the CNY area, and you could drill down into it and find the quadrant that included your neighborhood and see your personalized projected snowfall.  Ours was 11.7 inches. Not 11.5 inches; 11.7.  A little square or two away in any direction and it was as much as a couple of inches different.  I'm wondering how the heck they do that? Or, maybe the question should be why the heck they do that?

My Sweet Baboo and I have a stone driveway, which means that we shovel, we don't snow blow or have it plowed -- we shovel. This morning we didn't have a chance to do that before work, so I knew coming home that the driveway would be a challenge if they were close on that 11.7 inch expectation. I anticipated we'd park in the street until we could get inside, change our clothes and then get the shoveling underway. My Sweet Baboo, however, had a different idea. One that got us good and stuck about 80% in the driveway, at what I'll call a jaunty angle.  I'm wondering when he's going to admit that a car that has as low clearance as our HHR really stands very little chance of plowing through snow that's three inches deeper than that low clearance?

As I was changing into shoveling clothes, I heard a snow blower outside, and lo and behold, someone was out there, clearing out the area around the car. I had no idea who it was, but was thanking my lucky stars for the help. Turns out it was our neighbor across the street, who had just spent $200 on the snow blower; he bought it from someone who was moving south.  He also noted that his wife is still yelling at him for spending the money. I would have paid ten times that much for the help he gave us tonight, but I'm wondering how long it'll take me to get the stones cleaned up next spring...

While we were out in the driveway getting things cleaned up, there were a couple of nice gusts of wind, which made the visibility about as poor as that in the transparent city of Washington DC. Seems that there was some wheeling and dealing in a booth in the corner in the dark in the back of some closet or something, and there's a budget deal that will get us off the precipice of another fiscal cliff and fund the government for the next year or something.  Except that it includes things like giving a piddly 1% raise to most of those serving in the military, and cuts the Environmental Protection Agency and the IRS. And, oh yeah -- it increased the amount an individual can contribute during an election cycle to as much as $1.5 million or so, depending on who's reading the bill.

John McCain had suggested that the bill would be jammed full of shit, and he was right.

Not for nothing, but I'm wondering if this Congress in particular is so hellbent on showing how much they support our military, why don't they give our soldiers all $1.5 million, instead of effectively giving themselves that extra money?

Or, maybe, like Jonathan Gruber said, they're relying on their own lack of transparency and the stupidity of the American voter to get their budget bill passed.

Gruber Should Have Channeled Dan Rather

I confess,  I've always been a bit of a news junkie, which I blame on my late father. We not only had a thing about our newspaper, but also about the network news.

We used to watch it together when I lived at home, and later when I was out on my own, I'd get phone calls during the broadcast or messages on my machine when a reporter said something particularly, well, what we called noteworthy.We did a whole lot of Monday morning quarterbacking too.

And that's why, while I don't remember exactly what they were talking about, I've never forgotten the exchange between President Nixon and CBS News reporter Dan Rather all those years ago. You know the one, right? Here's how it went, after Rather introduced himself  to a round of cheering and catcalling from the audience.

Nixon: Are you running for something?  Rather: No sir, Mr. President.  Are you?

Fast forward from March of 1974, when Nixon was running from something, obviously, to today.  We had the 'glib' MIT economist Jonathan Gruber testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Under Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA), the Committee has been a source of wonderful witch hunts and wasted time, and today was no exception.

Gruber was involved in the economic analysis behind the Affordable Care Act. Meaning, with his experience (including working on Romneycare in Massachusetts, on which the ACA was based)  and his software program, he was tapped to help everyone understand the economics of the law. And he did that.

He also (dumbly) said some things while talking about the ACA, including that it included a tax on people who did not purchase insurance; that health care for the old and the sick would be paid primarily by the young and the healthy, and that people would lose their health care plans. He was transparent, in a time and a town that practically defines opaque.

Let's talk first about the tax.  That there would be a tax, or a fee, or a charge, or a blood-sucking penalty on people who did not get insurance was not a surprise. We know that, of course, because we are adults and, for those who were unsure, because the US Supreme Court told us it was a tax, even though the bill called it a mandate.

Why was it called a mandate? Because politicians are loathe to admit that they vote for new taxes, or increases to existing taxes.  Hell, Republicans actually are not allowed to vote for a tax. You can thank Grover Norquist for that; he has them all by the you-know-whats because of the pledge of allegiance they sign to him, instead of to us.

Now, let's talk about young/healthy vs old/sick part. Is there anyone who has any kind of insurance (other than life insurance) who does not understand that premiums are paid with the hope that the coverage will never be used?  Is there anyone who has insurance who does not understand that the premiums they pay are used to pay claims filed by other people?  

That's right. The premiums you pay are being used by other people who are filing claims, and they're being held in reserve to pay claims that haven't yet been filed. Yours, and everyone else's. Young people and old, sick people and healthy, men and women, doctors and cleaning ladies, female rocket scientists and male paper pushers. For all different kinds of insurance, not just health insurance. That's the business model, and it shouldn't be a surprise. 

  

Now, to point number three: that people would lose their coverage. Gruber is an economist not a politician, and he's a good 'get' at a conference, apparently, based on his self-described mean, insulting, disparaging comments. Gruber was at least honest in that he recognized, based on the economics of the ACA, that it would be almost too enticing for corporations to want to keep the insurance they had before the ACA, if there was any chance at all that they could achieve shareholder value, bottom line improvements, or just money-grubbing glee by cutting benefits. 

And corporations did make changes, and they did cut people's hours, and they did drop coverage for spouses, and all of those other things which we're painfully aware of today. 

Did I miss it? I have yet to read anything in the more than four years since the passage of the ACA that states that business must cut hours, that they must drop spousal coverage, that they must change carriers or plans, and that they simply must not continue on the path they were on before March 2010 when the ACA provisions began. And I can assure you, if those requirements are in the law, the Republicans would have been shouting them from the rooftops; alas, all they've done is vote some 50-odd times (unsuccessfully) to repeal it.

One of the lasting legacies of the ACA will certainly be that the Obama Administration did a horrible job educating people on the ACA, managing the message, and so on; they let government contractors do such an awful job on the Healthcare.gov website for the first open enrollment that, on a cynical day, I'm almost convinced there was some kind of quid pro quo with the Republicans to screw it up for Obama in return for getting the contract for fixing it later after Obama is out of office.

Gruber didn't help with his comments about the bill, how it was passed, what it contains, and what he surmised to be true about the implications based on his expertise as an economist. He was arrogant, and tried to make himself seem really important, and now he actually is really important. But you know what Gruber said that was really the reason he was before Issa's Committee?

He said it was the 'stupidity of American voter' that allowed the ACA to be passed. And we know nothing gets Congress riled up like an attack on the stupidity of the American people. We are, after all, the ones who elected these people, so insulting us like that, well, you might as well be pointing fingers at them. 

And so it was the 'stupidity' comment that led to this question from Issa, with all of his ire screwed up in his furrowed brow:

Issa: Mr. Gruber, are you stupid?  Gruber: I don't think so, no.  

And....opportunity lost. How I would have loved it if he had Rather'd at that exact moment:

Mr. Gruber, are you stupid?  No, sir, Mr. Issa.  Are you?  

Tuesday's Number: $177,204

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

Each week, I track health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

·         This week, there were thirteen new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $137,211.

·         There were four satisfied judgments, for $39,993.

·         And there were no health care related bankruptcies.

New this year, I’m tracking filings for each of the four Syracuse hospitals. Here’s the breakdown for this week:

·         Crouse had eight, totaling $71,040

·         St Joe’s had seven, for $94,906

·         SUNY Upstate had one, totaling $5,292

·         Community General, a part of Upstate, had none.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Hashtag Nation

#HandsUpDontShoot. #ICantBreathe.
If you spend any time on social media, or even if you pay attention to traditional media, you've seen the hashtags that stem from the shooting of Michael Brown and the choke-hold death of Eric Garner, both black males dead with the officer involved in each case un-indicted. The cases themselves are not necessarily indicative of #racism, even if that's the lens through which they are supposed to be viewed.

#BlackLivesMatter. #ShutItDown.
The two above are echoing in the multiple protests that have occurred in Ferguson and NYC and across the country since the grand jury decisions came out within days of each other. Without a charge in either case -- not murder, not manslaughter, not even criminally negligent homicide -- it's understandable that there were protests, even if some of them were self-serving, not on message, and generally destructive, when that's exactly the opposite of what was needed. Everyone saw the pictures of looting and burning in Ferguson. Here's some perspective on that, and on the whole of #Ferguson.

#CrimingWhileWhite.  #LivingWhileBlack.
The first one's all about how white people don't get arrested for things, as opposed to black people who do get arrested for things. Stop and frisk. Open container violations. White collar crime. Shooting your hunting buddies. That kind of thing. Here's a comedic take on it, peppered with some facts which should at least make you stop and think about things for a second.  The second of the pair is all about the flipside of the white privilege coin; about having to work harder, live more carefully, be more aware of your surroundings, simply because of your skin color.

Hashtags are used to bring people and ideas together; that's like-minded people and frequently opposite-minded people as well.  When those connections lead to open dialogue and an honest (if sometimes uncomfortable) exchange of opinions and perspective, we have a real opportunity. If they turn out to be only fleeting hashtags, if we all go back to what we did and thought before, that opportunity will be lost.

#AllLivesMatter.

How to Obtain an Indictment

How to indict a ham sandwich:

(1) Make a ham sandwich:

• Take two slices of any kind of bread.
• Spread one side of one of the pieces of bread with butter.
• Spread one side of the other piece of bread with your favorite mustard.
• Place a mess of ham on the buttered side of the one piece of bread
• Place some cheese on top of the ham.
• Place the other piece of bread, mustard side down, on the cheese.
• Slice the sandwich in half; stick a toothpick in each half of the sandwich. 
• Put the sandwich on a plate.

(2) Hand the plate with the ham sandwich to a New York District Attorney.

(3) Have the DA present the ham sandwich to a grand jury.

(4) Receive indictment.

How to indict a New York City police officer for jumping a suspect from behind, putting him in an illegal choke hold, literally riding the suspect to the ground without relaxing the choke hold, continuing (along with several other officers) to hold the suspect, at times by pressing the side of his face into a Staten Island sidewalk, and ignoring the suspect's repeated pleas that he was unable to breathe:









Anyone have the recipe for this?

Wondering on Wednesday (v13)

In no particular order, I'm wondering, on Wednesday:

Could there have been any attorney to take on Bill Cosby, other than Gloria Allred? We know of Allred locally; she's representing Bobby Davis and Michael Lang in their defamation case against SU's Jim Boeheim. The case, you remember, stems from comments Boeheim made in a post-game press conference about the allegations made by the two men against Boeheim's former assistant, Bernie Fine. Not sure what she'll offer as 'options' in that case, but the options she presented to Bill Cosby are gutsy if nothing else: set aside $100 million and let a panel of retired judges entertain accusations from all comers and decide which have merit, or waive the statute of limitations and face all of his accusers in court.  Hell of a choice.

And speaking of choices, the Round Mound of Rebound, Charles Barkley, chose to speak out about blacks and whites and the Ferguson grand jury decision (he agreed with it), and has taken a beating worse than any he took during his playing days in the NBA as a result. Barkley is not shy, and got started most recently on this topic of conversation back in October in reference to Russell Wilson, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback who may not be 'black enough' for his teammates.  Enter Barkley, noting that "when you're black you  have to deal with so much crap in your life from other black people" and he hasn't stopped since. I don't understand why blacks can't say this about other blacks without getting into trouble?

Something else I don't understand is why every celebration in New York City has to include Mariah Carey? I get that we have to have the Rockettes, but we could do without Carey, who if tonight's live performance was any indication, is barely able to sing any more.

One more note on singers. It was announced earlier this week that Billy Joel will be making his seventh appearance at the Carrier Dome in March.  I'm wondering, does this makes him our artist in residence? And, more importantly, does it mean that we'll start having concerts again in The Loud House?

Tuesday's Number: $921,488

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

Each week, I track health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

·         This week, there were 51 new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $858,054.

·         There was one satisfied judgment, for $41,395.

·         And there was one health care related bankruptcy, for $22,039.

New this year, I’m tracking filings for each of the four Syracuse hospitals. Here’s the breakdown for this week:

·         Crouse had 20, totaling $281,268

·         St Joe’s had one, for $38,621

·         SUNY Upstate had 29, totaling $558,829

·         Community General, a part of Upstate, had none.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Poetry: Black Hands

I have no idea exactly when my father wrote the poem below; we think it was in the mid 1960s when he was teaching high school history and the focus was on the civil rights movement.

My mom remembered that he asked his class to come up with something creative, instead of doing the normal hum-drum essay. Apparently some of the kids in his class weren't sure what to do, so he tried to help them along by giving them an illustration.

She said it didn't take him long at all to write it, and I always figured I'd end up doing something with it, I just wasn't sure what.

This seems like a good time, and a good thing.

Black Hands
(Gregory A. Drummond, 1929 - 2007)

How can we know - 

Those of us who are white

How can we know 

What it must be like 

to have Black Hands?

How can we feel

The hate, the sneers, the spite 

That come each day 

To man and child alike 

Who have Black Hands

We sit snugly, smugly

Sure of our fate;

Sure that at the last in death

There will be no hate.

What can we know 

Of darkness ending light?

Will we then learn

In that eternal strike

God has Black Hands?

Juxtapositions

I don't know about you, but I'm still reading and listening to commentary and news about Ferguson and all that we must now associate with that word, which used to be meaningful (from my point of reference) as the last name of long-time family friends. I'm sure some have given up already, out of frustration or agreement or because it's NIMBY (not in my backyard) or because they simply can't stand it anymore.

'It' is a combination of love and loss, hope and hatred, desire and despair, wistfulness and willfulness, optimism and pessimism, and countless other juxtapositions.

Much of what I'm seeing in traditional media are the 'haves' (privileged white folks) talking about the 'have nots' (folks who live in Fergusons large and small, where police over-reaction, racism, brutality, and lack of respect for blacks is at least perceived, if not actually happening.)

The haves are giving us the message we are supposed to hear, that we deserve to hear - that racism is alive and well in America in 2014, and that the deck is stacked against blacks, because of our education system, our economic system, our culture, and our collective upbringing that over-privileges whites at every turn and disadvantages blacks at each of those same turns.

The irony should not be lost on us, that people making millions of dollars a year reading the news are lecturing us on the great divide between white and black at the hands of, well, at the hands of rich white people. They might be right, but as prime examples of the very privilege they lament, they could sure be less smug about things and give us a little less hand-wringing, a little less head-shaking, a little less guilt-ridden narrative, a little less editorializing.

I'm suspect I'm not alone in thinking that it won't be long before the millionaires who swept in to Ferguson will be packing up and leaving town and we won't hear so much anymore about it, because the next Hannah Graham is out there, we all just know she is.

Wondering, on Wednesday (v12)

Random thoughts this Thanksgiving Eve, which have got me wondering on Wednesday.

If no one showed up for Black Friday sales, whether they happen the Friday after Thanksgiving or on Thanksgiving itself, would stores stop having them?  And if it really mattered to us that everyone had Thanksgiving Day off, wouldn't we all get our grocery shopping done by Wednesday?

If you were to go out shopping for that one great deal, what would you be shopping for?

I wonder if the Macy's ad this year will include the "there's no greater way to show your love" $99 engagement ring they had last year?

Speaking of ads, there was a little box in the paper the other day, telling me that my Thanksgiving paper would cost more than a usual Thursday paper, because it had all the ads.  It won't come postage due or anything, but my subscription will end sooner because of it.  I'm wondering, since the difference in price is not a full day's worth, if they're going to put a self-destruct timer on my paper sometime next spring?

Is it really possible that a pardoned turkey could have been eaten by the Pardoner-in-Chief? Egads!

And who knew that those articles on the cost of Thanksgiving Dinner were so out of whack? I mean, it doesn't even include mashed potatoes! Or that the survey is done before Halloween, when everything is full price?  The 16-pound turkey the article says cost $23.36 would cost $7.68 at most grocery stores in my neck of the woods.

If the male turkey is named Tom, what's the female's name?

Happy Thanksgiving; may you, your families and friends all travel safely, arrive on time, and don't forget to tell whoever did the cooking that everything was delicious. Celebrate what you're thankful for, and try and add to that list each year; it's one that can never be too long.

My Middle Aged White Lady Perspective: Juries Do Their Best

No indictment for Officer Darren Wilson, but a huge indictment of our justice system?  It might have been the right decision, or it could have been the worst decision in recent memory?  So many questions, still, after the announcement that there was no probable cause to charge Wilson with any of five different crimes in the death of Michael Brown.

My middle-aged white lady perspective is that when you get into an altercation with a police officer, such as the one that was described by Wilson and witnesses, you stop being merely 'an unarmed teenager' and start being a criminal. And should such an altercation occur, and the suspect were to flee, I would expect the officer to pursue and arrest the perpetrator. The district attorney, who would have the clear intent of obtaining an indictment against the person who assaulted the officer, would present evidence to the grand jury, and if it got that far, a jury trial could occur.

I've been on juries three times, never a grand jury.

One was an attempted murder with related felony charges. I was a kid, only in my twenties. The families of the victim and the alleged perpetrator were going at each other, shooting comments back and forth during jury selection. They were staring and glaring at us as we sat during voir dire, mumbling comments about us, and continuing their snarking back and forth at each other.

After several admonitions from the judge, which fell on deaf ears, the spectators were removed; there was a physical altercation outside as everyone left. When we were excused for the lunch break, we were harassed in the hallway by the perpetrator's family, more comments and dirty looks, and we were escorted down the hall by the court attendants. The people harassing us were all black. Most of us were white. We all were scared.

We came back after lunch to find out that that the two sides had settled during the break and that our services were not needed.  On our way out after being excused, the two families were going at it, and we were hurried out of the way again by the court attendants.  Once we were outside, we all expressed gratitude that we didn't have to see it through, although emboldened by not having to, we all were very confident that we could have done it.

My second criminal trial was a felony DWI case. The DA did a horrible job presenting his evidence; the defense attorney did a good job presenting his, and we found the gentleman not guilty.  After being excused, we were harassed in the hall outside the court room.

By the DA. Who told us we were idiots because clearly this guy was a drunk and we should have locked him up because he was a threat to humanity. And while that might have been the case, the evidence did not show that and we told the DA that.  He ended up being shoved down the hallway, still growling at us, by others from his office.

We did what we were supposed to do as trial jurors, and decided the case based on the evidence presented, even though we all suspected that he was a repeat offender (hence the felony charge) and there was a good chance he had been drinking that night. In the interest of full disclosure, after the trial, the defense attorney bought us all a drink.

The third one was a civil trial involving a fender bender in the parking lot of an ice cream parlor, much less glamorous, but again, based on the evidence presented, the six of us made our decision and assigned blame to both parties proportionally.

In Missouri v. Darren Wilson,  the grand jury was not presented a case where the clear goal was to obtain an indictment; to me it was more of an investigative effort. They heard evidence from not only witnesses, investigators and the alleged perpetrator, Officer Wilson himself, but they also saw media reports and personal video and audio recordings. This was not a trial, and it was not intended to be one. Some seem to think that was the point, and so from that perspective, the justice system failed. I disagree.

I haven't read everything yet -- it's all online, including Wilson's incredible statement that he "felt like a five year old holding onto Hulk Hogan" during the altercation with Brown in the police car. That shocked me - I mean, doesn't that sound more like something a middle-aged white lady would say, rather than a comment from a cop?

There are 24 volumes of grand jury testimony alone, as well as another 24 documents labeled Reports and Forensic Evidence, and 30 Law Enforcement Interviews. There are many conflicting statements, conflicting between Witness A and Witness B, as well as conflicting between Witness A and Witness A -- the same witness making different statements at different times. And there are many statements that conflict with the forensic evidence from the crime scene itself.

Ultimately, that is why I think the grand jury did what they did.  Asked to make a decision as to whether Darren Wilson murdered Michael Brown, based on all the evidence presented, they said no.

It doesn't make them racist.

It doesn't mean they're glad Michael Brown is dead.

No one is, including this middle-aged white lady.

Tuesday's Number: $255,748

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

Each week, I track health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

·         This week, there were 21 new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $245,762.

·         There was one satisfied judgment, for $9,986.

·         And there were no healthcare related bankruptcies.

New this year, I’m tracking filings for each of the four Syracuse hospitals. Here’s the breakdown for this week:

·         Crouse had eight, totaling $84,305

·         St Joe’s had five, for $44,598

·         SUNY Upstate had nine, totaling $126,845

·         Community General, a part of Upstate, had none.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Trustiness is Next to Truthiness

I really did not want President Obama to act unilaterally on immigration. 

Unlike 99.999% of the people who are commenting on the constitutionality of his action, I freely admit I don't know if he had the authority to do it; the Constitution (and the Bible, by the way) can be interpreted to mean what you want it to. That's one thing that 99.999% of us do know to be true. 

The argument that a boatload of Presidents before him have taken some kind of executive action on immigration doesn't really matter all that much to me, because (as noted above) I cannot speak with any authority on the legality or constitutionality of those actions either, and because, as they say, two wrongs don't make a right. And two rights don't necessarily make a right either, because of that whole interpretation thing.

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear. ~William E. Gladstone

Even though I think we need some kind of action on immigration, and pretty much everyone admits that, even the staunchest, most hate-spewing, build-a-giant-fence-around-the-country right-winger and the most open-armed-give-them-all-citizenship-welfare-and-healthcare-on-day-one left-winger, I do not believe this was the right way to go about it. Why?  

Because within the current Congress, or with the 'mandated by the majority of the 37% of voters who actually gave a damn and bothered to show up on November 4th' Congress that will start in January, there seem to be very few folks on either side of the aisle who can keep the gang from going any further off the rails because Obama 'stuck his finger in their eye' or because he 'played with matches' and so has to get burned, or because he 'poisoned the well' on immigration reform (and tax reform, and climate change, and jobs and trade and the economy) for the rest of his presidency, or because he won't be able to 'build trust' with the new Congress. 

Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country - and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians. ~Charles Krauthammer

He is not going to be able to build trust with the new Congress, in part because they neither seek nor want his trust, but mostly because:

• The leadership of the new Congress is the same as the old: Crying John Boehner is still somewhat in charge of the House Republicans, and Grumpy Old Mitch McConnell is still somewhat in charge of his cadre in the Senate. Nancy Pelosi is still in charge of her troops, and Harry Reid of his. And we all know, nothing says "trust me now" like a long history of not trusting me yesterday.  
• Because the first thing Boehner wants to do in his chamber is (drum roll please) vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act! He's already led his troops to do this some 50 times, at a cost of about $1.5 million each time he does it. Yep. $75,000,000 of your tax dollars trustfully put to work. 
• And oh, by the way, they just sued Obama over the ACA, something they have long planned as a trust-builder with the President. 
• Because this Congress just released its seventh report on Benghazi(or as they say on Fox News, BENGHAZI!) which found that there was no failure of the CIA and the military. But wait -- there's still one more investigation to go, she said trustingly.
• Because over the years, there have been bipartisan efforts galore - Simpson-Bowles on a host of financial reforms, and the Gang of Eight, who did immigration reform - which have been ignored by Congress and the President with equal relish. Gee, that trust stuff is tasty, isn't it?

Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words.Trust movement.~Alfred Adler

Had President Obama come out immediately after the midterm election and moved towards action, had he embarked on a campaign of his own, about his agenda for the next two years (including comprehensive immigration reform), I would have heartily approved.

Our distrust is very expensive.~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Had President Obama stood in the White House this past Thursday and asked Crying John to set aside his first plan of action for the new Congress (voting to repeal the ACA yet again) and instead make holding a vote on the the Senate's bipartisan immigration bill the priority, I would have supported him.  

Had President Obama used his personal Twitter feed, and the White House Facebook page, and all of the other communication vehicles at his disposal to address the lack of action on the part of Congress, and begged them to do the job they were elected to do - to serve the American people -- he would have me in his corner. 

We're all born brave, trusting, and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.~Mignon McLaughlin

At this point, I guess we have to hold out hope that there are enough people in Congress who are greedy enough, who want to be successful, who want to have a positive legacy, who want to be the ones to actually accomplish immigration reform, and that they can exude enough 'trustiness' to convince their colleagues to go along. 

Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness. ~Fred Woodworth

Wondering, on Wednesday (v11)

President Obama announced today, in one of those casual-leader videos we in the business world see so frequently, that he'll be talking to the country tomorrow about his plans to use his legal authority to make changes to some part of our immigration policy. The announcement came on the White House Facebook page. In reporting on it, NBC's Nightly News announced that the major networks would not be carrying the President's address. Seriously. According to an article on Yahoo TV, the big four have confirmed they won't be broadcasting the speech, expected to last for about 1.25 inches of Lake Erie lake effect snow.

The administration said today that Obama will be speaking live from the White House at 8PM ET on Thursday. But ABC has the fall finale for Grey's Anatomy on at that time, while CBS has ratings powerhouse The Big Bang Theory, NBC has reality show The Biggest Loser and Fox has Bones. As of right now, none plans changes to there regularly scheduled Thursday night November sweep schedules for the approximately 15-minute speech. 

Say what you want about Obama, immigration reform, executive authority, and the rest - he's still the President. I'm wondering, on Wednesday, shouldn't we at least pretend that it's as important for Americans to hear what he has to say as it is to watch a bunch of people get yelled at by personal trainers?

Bill Cosby's art collection is on exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art in Washington DC.  Everything else about Bill Cosby is on exhibit in the papers, on the news, on social media. In an almost surreal life-imitates-art situation, several women - fourteen? fifteen?  have come forward with accusations that Cosby drugged then molested or raped them, going back years, decades even. Cosby is not answering questions about any of this, and has lost at least two deals, one with Netflix and one with NBC.  The only similar situation I can think of that comes close is our old friend Tiger Woods, another guy who couldn't do much other than stand silent as accuser after accuser came forward, and you have to wonder with me, why the hell do these guys do this?

And then there's Tommy Chong talking about Jonathan Gruber on Fox News. I don't even know what to wonder about that one.

Knock Knock. Who's There? Tone-deaf Politicians

Tone-deaf politicians who?

Tone-deaf politicians who are so out of touch with reality that they actually think what they say they're going to do, or threaten to do, or promise to do, or promise to NOT do, makes sense.

There's practically a cast of thousands to choose from, so I can only provide a sampling. And, given that I'm an equal opportunity kind of gal, I promise we'll have representation from both political parties.

Ready?

I have to start with Dems in Washington, who are not allowing one of their members to vote by proxy for the upcoming House leadership positions.  Tammy Duckworth, who represents folks in Illinois, is eight months or so pregnant, and her doctor has restricted her travel.  Duckworth asked to be allowed to vote by proxy; this is simply not done, apparently. Seems the thinking is that once you do it for one person, it'll open the floodgates of proxy-vote-wishers and heck, Congress will be a mess. Or something.  The congresswoman is being the better person in this one, I think. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the Dems the party of women? The ones who are all about workplace equality?  The party that brought us the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ? Not for nothing, but it seems if you want women to be treated fairly in the workplace, perhaps you should set an example by treating them fairly in your own workplace.

Staying in Washington, let's talk about our tone-deaf President and Congressional leaders, Barack Obama, Crying John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell.  For someone who was such a strong communicator and messenger in the beginning, POTUS is demonstrating a clear lack vision, and a lack of understanding of what people want, or don't want, in the shadow of the mid-term elections.  Remember, Mr. President, turnout was only 37% - so no, you don't have a mandate to do something on immigration at this point, and the the Republicans don't have a mandate to repeal the Affordable Care Act.  The three of them need to share more than a glass of bourbon - they need a leadership seminar instead. I can't imagine they'd come out worse than they went in.

And lest you think that tone-deafness is a Washington-only affliction, let's turn our attention to New York Republicans. You recall that the Rs gained a slim majority in the State Senate, holding 32 seats now.  Naturally they re-elected Dean Skelos as their leader, and also continued with Southern Tier area senator Tom Libous, who is under indictment for lying to the FBI, as second-in-command. Apparently having ethically-challenged leaders is OK with the Republicans. But the real winner for the Rs is that Skelos believes it's time for a pay raise for the politicians in Albany. That's right -- their part-time base pay of over $79,000 (and average pay of around $100K) is not enough, and they haven't had a raise in 14 years, and well, it's about time, don't you think?

Um, no. It's not time to keep pregnant women from fully participating in elected office, and it's not time for crazy action by leaders in Congress, and it's not time for a pay raise for New York legislators.

It is time for these folks to start treating women fairly, time to listen and collaborate instead of bloviating all over our nation's capital, and time o pay attention to the people who can only imagine in their wildest dreams what they'd do with an income close to that of an Albany politician.

Tuesday's Number: $1,194,567

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

Each week, I track health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

·         This week, there were 41 new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $1,180,504.

·         There was one satisfied judgment, for $14,063.

·         And there were no healthcare related bankruptcies.

New this year, I’m tracking filings for each of the four Syracuse hospitals. Here’s the breakdown for this week:

·         Crouse had one, totaling $7,912

·         St Joe’s had four, for $51,477

·         SUNY Upstate had 34, totaling $1,007,053

·         Community General, a part of Upstate, had none.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Wondering, on Wednesday (v10)

Everyone's still talking about the election, how few people participated in it, what will happen in what's left of this illustrious Congress, and oh, about the stupidity of the American voter.

Several of the ads that were run in support of Republican John Katko in his defeat of incumbent Democrat Dan Maffei in the NY-24 talked about "Pelosi" and it wasn't until the very last week that one of the ads appeared to have been changed to refer to Nancy Pelosi. In states with actual races for Senate, Harry Reid was the one taking the hits. Almost none of the local ads mentioned President Obama, except in passing (as in 'Obamacare').

I'm wondering, on Wednesday, whether the rank and file in Washington will turn Reid and Pelosi out of their leadership positions. I think it's time now for the Democratic Party to turn to the future, to someone who might have a snowball's chance of working with the Republicans, and more importantly, of lighting a fire under the voters (and the President).

Speaking of voting, it appears the epic failure of the Dems in the races was topped only by the epic failure of Americans to vote: turnout was the lowest in decades, with fewer than 37% actually bothered. There are many schools of thought on this; on the one hand, Republicans have more 'passion for the cause' so they are more reliable than Dems, who are more complacent and only turn out during Presidential years (presumably for the Obama phones?).

I heard two actual registered voters express their opinions on this today on the radio. The first pointed out that it's too hard to vote in her state; her husband had to work twelve hours on Election Day, and the polls were only open for twelve hours, so he missed out. The second caller pointed out that he's registered but hasn't voted in some time; he's lived in multiple places and his issue isn't with having time to vote, it's all about having candidates worth voting for.

I'm not sure how to solve the problem for the second guy, but maybe there's a solution for the first one. I'm wondering why we don't have Election Day coincide with Veterans Day? It's already a government holiday and perhaps if we spent time focusing on the country, our veterans, and our future, it might make a difference.

And then there was the comment about "the stupidity of the American voter" which was made by the 'architect' of the Affordable Care Act. Supposedly the bill was written in an opaque way, rather than a transparent way, to fool voters into thinking it was a good thing, that the individual mandate was not a tax, and so on. Call me crazy but I'm wondering how many bills aren't written as obtusely as possible to hide one truth or another?

Take voter ID laws for example, or bills that say once you're in line to vote, you can't leave even to go to the bathroom.  If the bills were actually written to say that the intent was "to make it harder for people who tend to vote for Democrats to vote at all", would they pass?

Or redistricting bills: if they were written to say "we're carving up the state into districts that are almost unrecognizable, to make it nearly impossible to get us out of office once we get in" would people be in favor of them?

Or 'birther' bills, or gambling legislation, or ethics committees, or economic development programs.or gun laws.. There's nothing new here, folks. The big news is that people think we're stupid enough to think that politicians will ever be transparent and honest about anything of any significance.

Tuesday's Number: $807,738

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

Each week, I track health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

·         This week, there were 37 new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $706,773.

·         There were no satisfied judgments.

·         And there were two healthcare related bankruptcies, for $100,965.

New this year, I’m tracking filings for each of the four Syracuse hospitals. Here’s the breakdown for this week:

·         Crouse had 16, totaling $147,196

·         St Joe’s had one, for $92,833

·         SUNY Upstate had 21, totaling $559,577

·         Community General, a part of Upstate, had none.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

Poll Watch: Post Midterm Edition

Here's a smattering of what's happening out there, according to what we tell pollsters.

Most of it is political, given that we've just come from 'that election' last week, which 'shellacking' falls short of adequately describing.  Dems lost the Senate, several gubernatorial races which they thought they might have had a chance of grabbing, and a couple others, including Massachusetts.

On the other hand, it was not all a lost cause; progressive initiatives such as raising the minimum wage scored a few wins, and legalized marijuana scattered a few more seeds of change.

Now, before anyone gets too overwrought or overjoyed with the results, here's some food for thought from Rasmussen Reports:

• President Obama's overall approval rating has actually improved three points since the election, up to 48% from 45%.  The media and political consultants tried to make this election about the President and his negative rating, but here's the thing they don't tell you:  for 56 of his 70 months in office, his total approval rating has been between 45% and 49% --  including all of 2010, 2011, and so far in 2014, two-thirds (eight months) of 2013 and three quarters (nine months) of 2012. 
• Yes, Americans voted in a Republican majority in the Senate, and expanded the majority in the House but a majority of us (59%) think that the new Congress will be a disappointment.
• Not sure whether there's a correlation, but 35% of us have a drink at least once a week. Of the imbibers, 25% of them drink several times a week or every day.  The questions didn't include "have you had a drink today?" but one can only figure that, if political candidates were surveyed last Tuesday, the number raising a glass to that question would have been very high. 

Remember Ebola? You know, that "issue" facing America that surfaced in ads from the right-wing interest groups right before the elections?  That "issue" that right-wing anti-czaristas like John McCain felt needed an czar? Yeah, turns out not so much.  According to a Fox News poll from the end of October, most Americans were not on board with that. 

• When asked whether they thought appointing an Ebola czar was a PR stunt or a serious attempt to address the problem, only 23% thought it was a serious attempt.  That would be Republicans elected officials, apparently.  Two thirds of us know better.

The Pew Research Journalism Project took a look at media habits of folks, and have some interesting findings on which media sources are trusted, and by whom.  

• Not surprisingly, 47% of people who identify as consistent conservatives get their news from Fox. Consistent liberals are all over the map, with CNN (15%) NPR (13%), MSNBC (12%) and the New York Times (10%) sitting on top of the heap. 
• When it comes to trusting media sources,  the consistent conservatives trust more than distrust only these: The Wall Street Journal; The Blaze (Glenn Beck's outlet) and Glen Beck himself; Fox News; Sarah Palin-favorite Breitbart News Network; the Drudge Report; Sean Hannity; and Rush Limbaugh. Consistent liberals, on the other hand, trust most than distrust 28 of the 36 media sources, including both The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Which at least reaffirms they have a sense of humor. 
• Everyone apparently trusts more than distrusts The Wall Street Journal. Of the news sources mentioned, it's the only one that received a 'trust' from all groups, which in addition to consistently liberal and consistently conservative also included mostly liberal, mostly conservative, and mixed. On the flip side, Buzzfeed is the only one distrusted by folks of all stripes. 
• Of the major networks, only ABC captured trust ratings from all but the consistent conservatives. (Note to NBC: perhaps paying hiring inexperienced children of former presidents is not helping your credibility as a news organization?)
• I wonder what the trust score would have been for Inforwars, home of the false flag?

Speaking of  mostly distrusted Buzzfeed, they're sharing access (with the afore-mentioned highly trusted ABC News) to Facebook's 'sentiment analysis' data, which aims to analyze user preferences based on what gets posted. Looking ahead to 2016, here's a sampling of who's hot:

• Pianist/golfer/former Bush Administration hawk Condi Rice (72%), Medicare-slashing budgetarian and former Veep candidate Paul Ryan (65%), union-busting governor Scott Walker (57%) and Rand Paul (56%) on the Republican side
• Literally Joe Biden (67%), Hillary "what difference at this point does it make" Clinton (57%), Elizabeth "a better Hillary than Hillary" Warren (56%) and our own Sonofa Governor, Andrew Cuomo (56%).  

As I said, liberals sure do have a good sense of humor. They're going to need one for a while.