Goons in the Room

Whether the health care reform debate is framed by the Republicans who appear to be sending hysterical, angry people to disrupt town hall meetings being held by representatives and senators around the country, watch The Daily Show for a dose of what is happening there, or framed by the President at his civilized meeting in New Hampshire, know that the debate needs to be conducted by adults, because the issue we are facing is complex and has the potential to further erode our nation's ability to climb out of a recession.

When I cared for my ill mother, who had Medicare and supplemental insurance, my biggest complaint then was that Medicare didn't send us notification of medical bills submitted by doctors until after they were paid. Consequently, we could have prevented clear fraud. For example, my mother had stage four cancer when she was diagnosed once two vertebrae in her back broke from a tumor. She immediately made the decision that she would only submit to palliative care: radiation at the site of the tumor. She refused to see the oncologist who came to her room, not once, but twice. However, for the weeks that she was hospitalized, that oncologist was charging Medicare for services he never rendered. We didn't know for months, not until after the fraudulent bill had been paid. So one way to streamline Medicare is to allow patients to review the billing before it is paid. Patients could, as we did, find the fraud and reduce the costs.

"I'm afraid of Obama," was the call at some of the disrupted town hall meetings. I'm afraid of the steroid-injected hysteria pumped up by Fox Cable, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh. While we self-destruct, India and China are moving ahead, folks. That's where the future is, whether you like it or not.

The Age of Apology

For eight years no one, except for the weatherman when he missed the scattered storms and you forgot your umbrella, took the time to admit to any mistakes.

Times have changed.

Yesterday Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, the originator of the mighty Kindle (which I love) posted this after deleting from people's Kindles and from their Amazon.com computer-libraries, copies of the George Orwell classic 1984, among others, without warning:

This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.

With deep apology to our customers, Jeff Bezos Founder & CEO Amazon.com

Ironically, it was the novel 1984 that was deleted. The entire episode revealed the vulnerability of using a Kindle in terms of the ability of Amazon to continue to fiddle with readers' downloads. In this instance, Amazon removed entire books, could it also just remove portions of books, articles from newspapers? Being wired means being connected, with many privacy implications, some quite scary.

The President of the United States also engaged in some apologizing yesterday, after his improvised remarks at his press conference about the Henry Louis Gates' arrest in Cambridge, riled police across the country.

So we got an apology from President Obama, too: “I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up,” the president said in an appearance in the White House briefing room. “I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically, and I could have calibrated those words differently.”

Suddenly I feel like we are a nation of grownups again. Now that might be overly optimistic, after listening to the Republican defense of the health care status quo, but adult behavior is being modeled for us once again. It takes courage to apologize, it takes character.

Health Care Debate--Listen, Learn, and Then Press For Action

As I watched the press conference last night with my twenty-year old daughter, we marveled at how articulate and smart President Obama is, especially when we compare the spectacle of his press conference to what we suffered through rarely, albeit, with Bush, Jr. No one ever pressed Bush like Obama was pressed by reporters last night. Why is it that Bush silenced the press so and now suddenly we are asking for Obama accountability? There is an element of "truthiness" in Obama that somehow makes us feel smarter ourselves.

Being in the midst of a health care dilemma myself, I support a single-payer system with private options for those rich folks who want another level of health care. My husband and I were solicited last year, before the sky fell in, with a boutique medical plan: no insurance would be allowed, we would pay a premium to have access to a cadre of doctors immediately without waiting. We turned it down then, and I would turn it down now, too.

On one level we need to continue to fund research in medicine. The advances in cancer and heart disease are spectacular. The understanding of human fertility, genetic conditions, immune-deficient disease, well, it's inconceivable how much information has been amassed. The technology is also pretty phenomenal, too. The issue raised by this technology was well stated by Mike Dowling, the President and CEO of North Shore LIJ Health Systems, the largest health care provider on Long Island. At a luncheon several years ago for the Health and Welfare Council, Dowling described the new body scan machine that the hospital had purchased. This procedure could "see" inside the body, find blocked arteries, almost any abnormality, way beyond the PetScan, which only finds cluster of cancer cells once they reach about 1 cm. in size. The question raised by this advanced technology is: do we have the resources to treat all of the conditions such a body scan might reveal? Do we need to?

Where we haven't advanced is matching the diagnosis and treatment with the best practices. And let's not fool ourselves: most people have to wait uncomfortably long periods of time to see doctors, get a diagnosis, and begin treatment. So all of this crap about health care reform meaning rationed health care is bull. Here on Long Island, many board certified doctors don't take any insurance. You pay the doctor directly and then fight with the insurance company. If you are in an HMO, forget it. You have to go to less qualified physicians, when a more experienced doctor might provide a better outcome.

Here is a transcript of the press conference last night.

Dead in the Water--Not Quite

This afternoon President Obama engaged in "truthiness." He quoted a Republican Senator who said that if they could defeat his health care plan, Obama will be dead in the water.

Listen to Obama's comments, his first real push back on the Republican messaging that any health care reform is too expensive.

According to the President, this shouldn't be about him or about politics. But it is, because this fight is about power and money, about privatizing medical care rather than opening it up to everyone, and about the future of the Republican Party. Actually, according to me and a lot of other people, it's about the future of our economy, too.

Here is a wonderful resource--FactCheck.org-- to help wade through the propaganda that is being put out there by the lobbyists who don't want to do anything that will change the status quo. Remember these lobbyists are being paid by folks like insurance companies, for profit health care systems, and pharmaceutical companies. Notice that I didn't include the doctors, because many of them, especially the younger ones, acknowledge that the current system is unworkable and as my generation ages, will bankrupt the nation. This FactCheck.org article deconstructs two "independent" ads that make claims about the Canadian single-payer system. Beware!

It's time for Obama to do more than just set out guiding principles. It's time for a health care reform summit and for all of us to demand an end to the politics of destruction.

Post Script: Watch Lewis Black from The Daily Show on July 21 make fun of the Republicans tirades against health care reform.

Braking Government

After eight years of secrecy, incompetence, indecency, and a belief that government is inherently bad and the free market is inherently good, America elected Barack Obama whose philosophy begins with a different assumption: that government should serve the interests of the people. As a brilliant politician with an ambitious agenda to set the country right again, Obama has attracted to government some especially bright, and qualified, personnel.

According to CQ Politics, President Obama has been making these essential appointments at record speed. However, confirmation by the Senate is necessary to place these top officials in the bureaucracies that need to be functioning in order to move the ship of state. And the Senate is dragging its feet. Even though the Senate is now controlled by Democrats.

Obama is filling these vacancies faster than any recent president, but the pace isn't fast enough, especially after the debacle of the Bush administration.

A tally by the White House Transition Project, a group of academics funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that after 160 days in office, a mark that came during the July Fourth congressional recess, less than 40 percent of the most plum political jobs had been filled and that Obama had sent nomination papers to the Senate for slightly more than half of the jobs.

Finally Harold Koh, former dean of Yale Law School, was confirmed by the Senate to become Legal Counsel to the State Department. A more worthy choice would be hard to find, but the Republicans managed to question this amazing scholar's credentials because he is also an activist.

And also troubling is the delay of the confirmation of Dawn E. Johnsen to be the Director of the Office of Legal Counsel, the same office that under Bush-Cheney authored the infamous torture memos that might, hopefully, send some people to prison for violating domestic and international law. Those memos are a perversion of legal analysis and should be used in every legal ethics class to illustrate how professionalism means standing up to power and saying no when asked to rationize illegality. Because Professor Johnsen testified before the Senate about just how much the Office of Legal Counsel had been derailed, Republicans have branded her a radical.

With Obama's popularity slipping, in the wake of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase's announcement of record quarter profits after taxpayers bailed them out (under the Bush administration, remember, not by Obama) while unemployment continues to rise and foreclosures do, too, we need to get government seats filled with the best and the brightest. Now. There is so much to do and not a lot of time to do it.

Obama As a Black Man

Last night at the NAACP gala, the first African American president delivered the speech about race that he had avoided giving since the debacle over Rev. Jeremiah Wright that almost derailed his campaign for the Democratic nomination.

In some ways it had the tone of the speech Bill Cosby had been so criticized for making: the get off your ass, parent your children, and stop complaining.

What made this different? It was given by the President of the United States, a man who dabbled here and there with the lifestyle that has brought so many young African American men and women into despair.

But we can't forget, not for a moment, that racism is internalized, every moment that the disparities between whites and blacks continue, based not on happenstance, but on the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, and institutional racism that affects people of color not just daily, but throughout the day, for some. White people's attitudes are the problem, too.

Scroll down to the link to the bottom of the page and watch the speech. I was in awe of his ability to speak the truth, something so rare in any politician, especially after eight years of Bush.

Or read the speech and wonder how we can move to real conversations about race, like Eric Holder tried to do in February, his nation of cowards speech, and this one from the President hmself.

On the Streets of Tehran

The information age makes modernization inevitable. As we watch the demonstrations in Tehran, we see young men and women connected with the outside world through cell phones, the internet, and even Twitter. Bloggers are sending out messages and images as journalists are kept out of Iran and official Iranian media say everything is just fine.

Twenty years ago it was the fax machine in Beijing that kept the revolt at Tiananmen Square alive until tanks and soldiers and guns ended the flicker of democracy.

What role should the United States play in this Iranian drama? This should be the subject of discussion, not just an opportunity to critique the President for not being strong enough in his rhetoric. As the United States restores its historic role as a beacon of hope, we need a full and informed discourse about how to use our power wisely, principled, and effectively.

My Own Celebrity Sighting

This morning I was up at the crack of dawn again, although I have been at three conferences in four days in DC. Brain over-stimulation, of course. I turned on the flat screen TV in my hotel room and since I am a C-SPAN junkie, happened upon the Radio & Television Correspondents' Dinner, not to be confused with the White House Correspondents' Dinner of two months ago.

Yes, President Obama was there in his tuxedo and gave a charming speech, knocking himself as well as the reporters in the room. It's really funny, and he is quite adorable in how he delivers a line, hears the laughter, and then gets the joke himself. Check it out on Youtube.

After the President spoke, John Hodgman came to the podium. Following the President? John Hodgman is the potato-skinned satirist from The Daily Show who also appears as the PC in Apple's computer commercials. He was brilliant and understated, as only John Hodgman can be. See his performance.

Here is my celebrity sighting: I was on line to get the noon Acela back to New York and who was just a few people ahead of me but John Hodgman and his delightful wife, partner, whomever.

"Mr. Hodgman," I said, "you were brilliant at the correspondents' dinner last night."

"Were you there?" he asked.

"No, I was up at 5:30 this morning and saw it on C-SPAN," I replied.

Without cracking a smile or missing a beat, he responded, "I arranged that."

Then I had to ask him the ultimate question. "Were you terrified?"

That's when his delightful wife joined in, "He was so nervous he would hardly speak to me for weeks."

"I was terrified," he said and we got onto the train, although in different cars.

Assumptions of Incompetence

What we have learned from the hateful talk radio chatter about the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is that too many white people assume that people of color are not competent. The claims that despite her education, graduating with honors, and seventeen years on the federal bench, somehow she just hasn't got what she needs to be on the Supreme Court. Her years of judicial experience are greater at the moment of her nomination than any other seated justice.

It's about her being Puerto Rican. It's about her being a woman. Although I support her nomination, I wish Obama had chosen someone who was more leftist, not as centrist.

Now one of the stalwarts of conservatism of the US Senate, Tom Coburn (R-Ka.), has endorsed a bill that would require President Barack Obama to produce a birth certificate to prove that he is indeed a citizen.

As if Obama hasn't proven himself as probably the only qualified person to lead the United States through these treacherous times! There must be something wrong with him, according to the sponsors of this legislation that has support in the House and now has Senate sponsors. Let's undetermine his legitimacy.

I have lots of complaints about Obama, but qualifications are not part of my litany. I want him to be more radical, move this country to sustainable economics, regulate the shit out of the financial markets, make health care universal and provided with dignity, get out of Afghanistan and Iraq, prosecute Bush and Cheney and the rest of the mob of the Bush administration.

There is a difference, a real difference, in critiquing how and wondering whether.

Our Nation's Capital

This is my second trip to Washington DC since Obama was inaugurated and the entire feel of the city has changed. It's always been a young city, with ambitious recent graduates pouring in every four years to grab those jobs on the Hill and if their party is out of power, at the various think tanks around town. But this feeling, as summer is delayed with rain and cooler temperatures is different from anytime I've been here before.

I lived here from 1966 to 1970 through the Johnson and Nixon administrations. And one thing that was nowhere to be felt then was: hope.

Now the city is full of hope and pride.

Riding in a cab through rush hour to a meeting yesterday, I got into a conversation with the driver, a man, exactly my age--60--dark skinned from the islands with a seventeen year old son, because like me, he didn't marry and have children until he was in his forties. First, we pandered and told the other how damned good we looked for sixty!

Then we got down to the business of Obama. He spoke about his pride, how much he loves listening to him speak, how he might not be doing as much as we want him to, but that if he continues to speak and keep our spirits up that we have hope now.

"We didn't have any hope during the Bush years," he said.

His sadness was that his seventeen year old son seemed lost already. "He was such a good kid until he hit those teenage years," he confided, "and now, now I don't even know him."

Will the Obama hope reach into the hearts of these young African American men who seem to be getting lost in shameful numbers, having internalized racism to such a degree that they cannot learn in school or find the discipline to work at a job. Have we lost yet another generation despite the narrative of Barack Obama: he, too, was lost for a few years. That's what makes his story so powerful, that he was lost and then he found himself again. Redemption.

The Disappearance of the Hair Dryer in Iraq

Only Stephen Colbert would incorporate a hair dryer icon into the logo for his latest exploit, his USO tour in Iraq. Last night was hysterical: Colbert mocked the secrecy of the war, walked that amazing line that he broached at the White House Correspondents Dinner between humor and disrespect with approval from the audience of service men and women, and then (spoiler alert) brought on the commander in chief himself, President Obama, to order General Odiemo to cut his hair. Watch this episode of Operation Iraqi Stephen!

On a much more serious note, the Supreme Court yesterday refused to review the failed military policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," that forces military personnel to keep their sexual orientation a secret or risk dishonorable discharge if they come out. Although there is a bill pending in the House, Ted Kennedy is waiting for a Republican co-sponsor to introduce it into the Senate. We are losing good service people, it's a waste of talent, and it forces people to be unreal. Israel, England, Ireland--there is a long list of countries that allow open service by gays and lesbians. Read the facts about openly gay service.

Waking Up to Vision

Most mornings I wake up to mostly terrible news that gets blasted out on National Public Radio. But yesterday I woke up to hear President Obama speaking clearly and courageously to an audience in Cairo about the history of the Middle East and the history of American and Muslim relationships.

I never believed this might happen.

His speech was rhetorical, full of promise, exactly what is needed to begin to open hearts. Open hearts let minds believe.

His commitment to Israel couldn't be faulted by even the most devout Zionist. His understanding of Islam comes from deep personal experience.

America elected Barack Hussein Obama, and he chose to speak in Egypt.

Some criticized the site: why Egypt, a corrupt and brutal regime. Why not Turkey, Indonesia, or Jordan?

We need an answer here. It's a legitimate question. But for now, I'm just happy that the "war on terror" has ended and a moment of change is feasible.

Ubiquitous Dick

Dick Cheney is everywhere! When he was in office, he was nowhere, and now, when he has no power except for the power of celebrity, he is spouting off on everything from terrorism to Guantanamo to gay marriage.

While in office his party used gay marriage as a wedge issue that brought out conservative voters by placing eleven anti-same sex initiatives on ballots in 2004. All of them won and Bush was reelected. The strategy won.

Dick Cheney is also self serving. His daughter is gay and a mother, so now he is claiming that he supports gay marriage but considers it a matter for the states to decide. The hypocrisy, of course, is that the Republican Party under the direction of Karl Rove used state ballot initiatives to ban legislatures from considering the issue.

Yesterday during an interview with President Obama on NPR radio, he was asked whether he considers Cheney's speeches an obstacle to America changing course especially in the Muslim world. Always gracious, this is what President Obama said in response to a question by Michelle Norris:

Obama suggested that though he believes Cheney's analysis is flawed, the former vice president has every right to weigh in on important national security issues.

"He also happens to be wrong, right?" Obama said. "Last time, immediately after his last speech, I think there was a fact check on his speech that didn't get a very good grade.

"Does it make it more complicated? No. because I think these are complicated issues, and there's a legitimate debate to be had about national security."

Obama added: "I don't doubt the sincerity of the former vice president or the previous administration in wanting to protect the American people."

Did America Just Get Smarter?

John Medina is a neuro researcher and the author of Brain Rules, a sensational book about what we know (very little) and what we need to know (an enormous amount) in order to understand how the human brain works. The book is cleverly organized and has a corresponding website so that after one reads a chapter, there is an interactive segment to help remember, since memory is often reinforced by repetition and a switch in how one is processing incoming information.

The chapter I am currently reading (on my Kindle while I work out) is about the impact of stress on cognition. Stress makes us stupid.

Adults experiencing high levels of stress performed 50% worse on certain cognitive tests. Children perform even worse. Any school teacher who has watched an A student descend into failure knows that something is happening at home. Stress pushes people into depression, too, another ailment that makes us stupid by shutting down entire aspects of human creativity.

"Stress alone is neither harmful nor toxic," according to Medina. Allostatis is the word to describe this state. How our bodies reaction to stress depends on three factors that affect the allostatic load: the type of stress, its length, and severity.

Now let's go back to the post-911 Bush era. Do you recall? Constant and relentless stress caused by incessant, strategically timed warnings that the next terrorist attack was just around the corner. And we believed them, because they had failed to prevent the first attack, something the Bush administration officials always failed to acknowledge.

Enter President Obama with his cool, precise tone. My goodness, the President reminded us to wash our hands and to keep our sick kids home from school during the week-long type A H1N1 influenza scare. (It worked, too! People acted responsibly, and the flu didn't spread as virulently as one might have expected.)

He didn't add to the crisis; he was cool. We can blame cable news for the hysteria, not the President.

So yesterday, being Mother's Day, I declared a moratorium on Sunday news shows and obsessive website reading, because I had gotten to this chapter in Brain Rules. And I knew Dick Cheney was back on the airwaves again, trying to scare us. This man who was virtually invisible during his term in office, sequestered in secret bunkers, making more and more money on his investments while descending into his paranoid state, can't get enough air time now that he is free from the stress of being in office.

And we know why! He is afraid of investigations and prosecutions. He dodged the Valerie Plame investigation, but he can't dodge the responsibility for torture.

Mother's Day: On a lighter side! Did you see "Dicks in the Box," an off-color and delightfully funny video done by Justin Timerberlake and Andy Samberg on Saturday Night Live sometime in the fall. They did a sequel Saturday night called "Motherlove" in honor of Mother's Day. Watch them in order and laugh! That's a great antidote to stress, by the way.

Thanks to my daughter for sending me the link as a Mother's Day present!

Corrupting the Character

In his press conference last night, President Obama spoke about the corrupting of the character of America because of waterboarding, which he stated unequivocally was torture.

Here is a link to the briefing and to the press conference itself.

To date it's the strongest statement he has made although he avoided speaking about accountability, at least last night. In prior statements, he said it would be a decision for Attorney General Eric Holder. That's where it belongs, too: it should be a prosecutorial decision not a political one.

But back to the waterboarding, in Spain, five former prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, have joined in the case where a judge has authorized an investigation into the circumstances of American interrogations. According to an interview with Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, on WBAI last evening, if indictments result, so will arrest warrants against those found to have authorized and implemented torture. Since we can't expect that the United States will extradite those US officials, there will be arrest warrants issued. The impact of those will be that Bush, Cheney, and any others will not be able to travel to any European country.

That might not effect Bush, who never likes to leave Texas anyway, but will impede Cheney and Rumsfeld and their capacity to make more money through speaking fees.

That Rumsfeld is making yet more money through the swine flu spread is making me sick. He is one of the founding directors of Gilead Sciences, which owns the world wide patent for the anti-viral.

Pressure is certainly mounting on the United States to act itself, to purge itself, to correct itself. The discussion about whether torture works is a distraction. Imagine what George Washington might think! Let's see how true to the constitution those "originalists" really are.

Sidebar: There was something quaint, and I never thought I would use the word "quaint" about his directions on how to avoid the swine flu: wash your hands, cover your mouth, stay home if you or your children are ill.

He said it twice.

60 Minutes

President Obama on 60 Minutes tonight made me feel less hysterical, more confident, and reassured me that while he is only human, he is the best person to have in the White House at this time. I couldn't imagine John McCain giving the interview that Obama gave tonight. Relaxed, intelligent, clear, and determined, without being combative or partisan. Here is a link to the first portion of the interview by Steve Kroft, which wasn't hardball, although Obama had the opportunity to show his stuff.

Obama really is the "decider." When asked how many decisions he has to make daily, he couldn't say. The only people who get a meeting to see him are people who are faced with really difficult decisions, ones that need his input. His biggest frustration is that too many decisions are based on bad and worse options, because of decisions that were made before he got to the White House. He wasn't any more specific than that. Here is a link to the second part of the interview.

When asked about Dick Cheney's comments that his decision to close Guantanamo and to end "enhanced interrogations" is making America less safe, Obama was unambiguous in standing firm to American ideals of justice and international law. Cheney is obviously trying to turn the issue of whether he and Bush, along with Rumsfeld, Bybee, Yoo, and Rice, committed war crimes and violated American law, into a political issue and not one of criminal liability.

When It Smells, It's Usually Rotten

When then-governor Rod Blagojevich played the race card and nominated Roland Burris to be the replacement for Barack Obama in the US Senate, representing the State of Illinois, people blanched. At least I did. Although on the surface, Burris appeared to have qualifications: he served as attorney general and as comptroller for the state, he had run unsuccessfully for several state-wide offices, and he claimed to be clean. However, having been nominated by Blagojevich, everyone considered the nomination tainted, since the governor had already been indicted for trying to sell Obama's senate seat.

First, the Senate Democrats said they wouldn't seat Burris. Then they recanted. Some press revealed some not so pleasant aspects about him. For reasons we don't know, Burris was sworn in and seated on January 15, 2009.

After Blagojevich was impeached and convicted, Burris' story began to change. OK, Rod's brother might have asked him to raise money for Blagojevich's campaign, more than once actually. And now, today, Burris admitted that he even tried to raise money for the former governor.

What does this mean? On the same day that yet another Ponzi scheme was uncovered--the Stanford Financial Group out of Texas-- a mere $8 billion this time, President Obama signed the stimulus package into law which will haunt America through several generations, America's car industry announced job layoffs of 50,000, and the stock market fell nearly 300 points, America needs legislators we can trust.

Recently I've been struck by the desperation of some men's ambition, their need to leave an imprint on the world. When that ambition is solely self-centered and corrupting, then we can do without the imprint, please.

February 20 update: Burris' list of lobbying clients leaves out important names when he appeared at Rod' s impeachment hearing.

Obama Goes Straight to the People on Stimulus Package

In his weekly video address, President Barack Obama brought the reasons why the stimulus package is so important straight to the public, foregoing reporters.

Today President Obama also wrote an op ed for the Washington Post on the same subject.

I have to say that I'm impressed that he isn't talking down to us, but truly trying to inform as he explains.

But, and this is a big skeptical "but," when we hear about how much corruption there has been under the TARP, the Bush- Paulsen one that bailed out the banks so that they could refuse to loan money to ordinary people, choosing instead to buy up other banks and then reward their top executives with bonuses they didn't deserve, I'm wondering: does anyone know what they are doing?

The answer is no. No one knows anything. So, if we are going to spend to jumpstart the economy, let's really spend and not just create more corruption.

Today I heard disheartening news. I was told that the same brokers who sold those sub prime mortgages are now the same people who are selling their services to negotiate new terms on those same lousy mortgages to the same customers they cheated in the first place.

And The New York Times published the list of Madoff clients, not all of whom lost money, but who were at least at one point or another considered investors. The list is searchable by name with addresses, so you can see if any of your former friends and foes are bleeding.