Marc Cooper reports that John Edwards dominated the series of presentations by seven Democratic presidential candidates in Las Vegas Saturday sponsored by the Service Employees Union and the Center for American Progress (Edwards Stands Out On Health Care Debate, The Nation). While all the contenders "vowed to provide universal coverage if elected, only John Edwards presented a plan with any significant details."
Edward's personal difficulties and his work on poverty in America have made him think hard about the issue of health care. Although you might find his plan unnecessarily complex, it does have the virtue of being specific, a long step toward converting the platitudinous promise of universal health care into policy. Edwards, who has been speaking about the issue for months, has made health care the defining issue of his campaign.
Hillary Clinton, who can't be accused of not having given health care a lot of thought, "was more vague in how she would achieve universal coverage. She put her emphasis instead on ending the 'discrimination' exercised by insurance companies when they exclude or disenroll policyholders. 'Every health insurance company will have to insure everybody with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions,' she said." While this sounds like she's being tough on the insurance industry, it should be noted that, like the Clinton administration health plan, Hillary's emphasis puts the insurance business at the center of any "reform" and that insurance companies have been among the biggest contributors to her campaign.
Cooper quotes a high-ranking West Coast SEIU official, speaking off the record, as saying tellingly that, "If the election were held today, we'd be supporting Edwards. When he comes into town he asks what he can do for us. Hillary asks us what we can do for her."
Barack Obama, who so far seems to be running as a stand-in for Mr. Rogers, was characteristically platitudinous. Instead of concrete proposals, he listed a number of "principles" that would guide him toward covering all Americans. "The basic principles," he said, "are everybody is in it, there has to be more money for prevention, and some form of pooling of costs and risks. If we have another forum in a few months and my plan is still not on my website, I will be in trouble."
As he has been from the beginning of the campaign, Edwards is the only candidate who is honest about the cost of setting up universal health care -- estimated by his campaign as between $90-120 billion, and about the need for taxes to pay for it. Senator Obama didn't rule out raising taxes, saying he would do "whatever it takes" to get universal coverage by the end of his first term.
Richardson, Dodd, Gravel and Kucinich also made presentations -- Biden, who wasn't there, may have decided that decisions about national health care are a little above the SEIU's pay grade. The usually forthright Richardson, who at other venues has suggested universal health care can be funded through cost-cutting measures, said he would pay for coverage by using the billions now spent in Iraq, as if those expenditures weren't already being met with deficit spending. Kucinich, who supports a single-payer system, offered no details about how it would work or be paid for.
Kucinich got off the most quoted line of the day, however: "You need a president who didn't fall out of a Christmas tree," he said. "You need a president who doesn't have a key in the back being wound up by special interests."
See Impractical Proposals: "Update: Progress on Single-Payer Universal Healthcare"
Environment: Al Gore's Ten Point Plan for Global Warming, presented to Congress on 2007-03-21
When Al Gore testified to congressional committees last week, he endorsed decentralizing the distribution of power from renewable energy and alternative sources, and he called for policy changes to make it happen:
"We ought to have a law," Gore said, "that allows homeowners and small-business people to put up photovoltaic generators and small windmills and any other new sources of widely distributed generation that they can come up with and allow them to sell that electricity into the grid without any artificial caps, at a rate that is determined not by a monopsony -- that's the flip side of a monopoly. You can have the tyranny of a single seller; you can also have the tyranny of a single buyer, and if the utility sets the price then it'll never get off the ground. But if it's a tariff regulated according to what the market for electricity is...then, you might never need another central station generating plant. In the same way that the internet took off and stimulated the information revolution, we could see a revolution across this country with small-scale generation of electricity everywhere. Let people sell it! Don't reserve it for the single big seller."
Watch Gore's testimony on YouTube.
And here is Gore's summation of the recommendations he made to Congress:
1. Immediately freeze carbon at the existing level; then implement programs to reduce it 90 percent by 2050.
2. Reduce taxes on employment and production, instead taxing pollution (especially CO2). These pollution taxes would raise the same amount of money, but make us more competitive by encouraging employment while discouraging pollution.
3. A portion of the revenues must be earmarked for low-income and middle-class people who will have a difficult time making this transition.
4. Negotiate a strong global treaty to replace Kyoto, while working toward de facto compliance with Kyoto. Move the start date of this new treaty forward from 2012 to 2010, so the next president can start to act immediately, rather than wasting time trying to pass Kyoto right before it expires. We have to try to get China and India to participate in the treaty. If they don't immediately participate, we have to move forward with the treaty regardless, trusting that they will join sooner rather than later.
5. Impose a moratorium on construction of any new coal-fired power plant not compatible with carbon capture and sequestration.
6. Develop an "electranet" -- a smart grid that allows individual homeowners and small businesses to create green power and sell their excess power to the utility companies at a fair price. Just as widely distributed information processing led to a large new surge of productivity, we need a law that allows widely distributed energy generation to be sold into the grid, at a rate determined not by the utility companies, but by regulation. The goal is to create a grid that does not require huge, centralized power plants.
7. Raise CAFE standards for cars and trucks as part of a comprehensive package. Cars and trucks are a large part of the problem, but coal and buildings must be addressed at the same time.
8. Set a date for the ban of incandescent light bulbs that gives industry time to create alternatives. If the date is set, industry will meet this challenge.
9. Create Connie Mae, a carbon-neutral mortgage association. Connie Mae will defer the costs of things like insulation and energy-efficient windows that cut carbon but are often not used by builders or renovators because they add to the upfront costs of homes, only paying for themselves after several years of energy savings.
10. The SEC should require disclosure of carbon emissions in corporate reporting.
- from AlGore.org.
"We ought to have a law," Gore said, "that allows homeowners and small-business people to put up photovoltaic generators and small windmills and any other new sources of widely distributed generation that they can come up with and allow them to sell that electricity into the grid without any artificial caps, at a rate that is determined not by a monopsony -- that's the flip side of a monopoly. You can have the tyranny of a single seller; you can also have the tyranny of a single buyer, and if the utility sets the price then it'll never get off the ground. But if it's a tariff regulated according to what the market for electricity is...then, you might never need another central station generating plant. In the same way that the internet took off and stimulated the information revolution, we could see a revolution across this country with small-scale generation of electricity everywhere. Let people sell it! Don't reserve it for the single big seller."
Watch Gore's testimony on YouTube.
And here is Gore's summation of the recommendations he made to Congress:
1. Immediately freeze carbon at the existing level; then implement programs to reduce it 90 percent by 2050.
2. Reduce taxes on employment and production, instead taxing pollution (especially CO2). These pollution taxes would raise the same amount of money, but make us more competitive by encouraging employment while discouraging pollution.
3. A portion of the revenues must be earmarked for low-income and middle-class people who will have a difficult time making this transition.
4. Negotiate a strong global treaty to replace Kyoto, while working toward de facto compliance with Kyoto. Move the start date of this new treaty forward from 2012 to 2010, so the next president can start to act immediately, rather than wasting time trying to pass Kyoto right before it expires. We have to try to get China and India to participate in the treaty. If they don't immediately participate, we have to move forward with the treaty regardless, trusting that they will join sooner rather than later.
5. Impose a moratorium on construction of any new coal-fired power plant not compatible with carbon capture and sequestration.
6. Develop an "electranet" -- a smart grid that allows individual homeowners and small businesses to create green power and sell their excess power to the utility companies at a fair price. Just as widely distributed information processing led to a large new surge of productivity, we need a law that allows widely distributed energy generation to be sold into the grid, at a rate determined not by the utility companies, but by regulation. The goal is to create a grid that does not require huge, centralized power plants.
7. Raise CAFE standards for cars and trucks as part of a comprehensive package. Cars and trucks are a large part of the problem, but coal and buildings must be addressed at the same time.
8. Set a date for the ban of incandescent light bulbs that gives industry time to create alternatives. If the date is set, industry will meet this challenge.
9. Create Connie Mae, a carbon-neutral mortgage association. Connie Mae will defer the costs of things like insulation and energy-efficient windows that cut carbon but are often not used by builders or renovators because they add to the upfront costs of homes, only paying for themselves after several years of energy savings.
10. The SEC should require disclosure of carbon emissions in corporate reporting.
- from AlGore.org.
Hard Times
Difficult as it may be to take seriously the hullabaloo at the L.A. Times, it is nearly impossible for a municipality to support a viable political culture without a strong independent daily newspaper, thus it follows that the Times' troubles are our own. So read the Times' official take on the current "scandal" here, poke through Mickey Kaus' column in Slate for some facts and filler, and take a gander at the notoriously conflicted Michael Kinsley's essentially correct but typically smug commentary, What A Day, What A Day for an Auto-da-fe, on Time magazine's D.C. blog, Swampland.
Update: Progress on Single-Payer Universal Healthcare
Here's the latest communication from Marilyn Clement of Healthcare-NOW:
Many good things are happening across the nation as the single payer movement continues to develop. People ask the question, “How could this have happened?" How is it that there is only one healthcare plan in the nation that has a huge constituency of support? And we know the answer. It is because of your work.
Here are some of the exciting developments in the single payer movement:
1. We now have 62 co-sponsors of H.R. 676 in just two months following its reintroduction in this new Congress -- as a result of your efforts.
2. The AFL-CIO has joined us as an endorser of single payer. How did this happen? It happened because of the movement of local unions from the bottom up who studied the bill, endorsed it, and urged the AFL-CIO to join us over the past eighteen months. One volunteer, Kay Tillow, has worked tirelessly to make this happen.
3. Act-Up has joined us – one of the most militant organizations in the U.S. – the group that challenged Congress and the healthcare agencies to do the research and help to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s and 90’s. Now they have made single payer, national healthcare their #1 issue.
4. The National Organization for Women has formally endorsed.
5. Newspapers all over the country are studying the issue, and many are endorsing. City councils are signing on. Two state democratic parties, New Hampshire and Washington State have endorsed single payer and will be pushing the national Democrats to move forward toward single payer in the coming election.
6. We met with the New York Times this week in a very good exchange on the issue.
7. And Congressman John Conyers is planning a briefing for Congress members and the public on April 24th in Washington, D.C. You are invited. Be in touch with joel.segal@mail.house.gov for more details.
One of the friends of single payer in the U.S. Congress is Maurice Hinchey. In addition to being a strong endorser of H.R. 676, he has introduced legislation that has forced the FDA to create new rules to protect us from the drug profiteers.
When we achieve a national single payer system in the United States, we will have a system where the single payer (probably Medicare) will negotiate the cost of all drugs for all of us and have a strong mechanism for protecting our people.
We will have several elements of good business practices as a part of our national healthcare program including “negotiating prices,” “eliminating the unnecessary middle man (the insurance companies)” and “purchasing in bulk” both durable medical equipment and prescription drugs since there will be 300 million of us in one large purchasing pool. This will be another of the great savings that will provide us with a quality healthcare system for all without spending any additional money.
Businesses, employees and employers will all save money. No more co-pays or deductibles and no more denials and out-of-pocket expenses for necessary medical care.
Hinchey’s legislation and the FDA’s response are described in today’s [NYTimes], F.D.A. Rule Limits Role of Advisers Tied to Industry. The new rules would bar government advisers who receive money from a drug or device maker from voting on that company's products. As the story notes, this is not the ultimate solution to the problem of FDA complicity with the drug profiteers, but it is a start.
H.R. 676, Conyers’ United States National Health Insurance Act, is the only bill in Congress that pushes for a non-profit national healthcare system that will serve us all. It is the only bill among the many that have been introduced recently and among the state bills that are being considered that eliminates the role of the insurance companies, both in government-funded programs such as Medicare and SCHIP (the child healthcare program) and in the healthcare fund that will provide excellent healthcare to all of us.
As a result of the elimination of the insurance companies’ role in healthcare, we will be able to cover one-third more healthcare. In other words, we could cover one-third more children if we didn’t have insurance companies in the middle of the SCHIP program. We can cover one-third more people in the United States and provide 100% better benefits for all of us with H.R. 676.
Under single payer, H.R. 676, we will eliminate the waiting lines that keep about 50 million of our people suffering and dying, and we will be able to provide much better benefits, doctors who don’t have to spend their time satisfying hundreds of insurance companies, hospitals that don’t have to spend billions of dollars on exacting payment for hundreds of insurance, government and individual payers, mental health care, drug and alcohol treatment for all who need it; payment for prescription drugs; long-term care (how many of us have no long-term care insurance now?) and more.
"Everybody in; nobody out!”
Here are some of the things that you can do immediately to push forward real single payer legislation, H.R. 676 (see more ideas at our website, http://www.healthcare-now.org):
1. Visit the editorial board of your newspaper;
2. Send letters to the editors and to columnists and writers of newspapers nationwide including the New York Times editorial board;
3. Get on the list for newspaper articles on a daily basis (write joykal1@aol.com)
4. Hold and event or hearing this coming month (April) or soon in your neighborhood or state (See guidelines for organizing on our website. http://www.healthcare-now.org/action/how_to.htm ). Invite your Congressmember. But don’t wait on Congress. It is the people’s movement rising up from the bottom that will get us a national single payer healthcare system. No Congress or Presidential candidate is going to provide us with the healthcare system we need without our massive efforts;
5. Call us for organizing suggestions. 1-800-453-1305 ; info@healthcare-now.org;
6. Make a contribution to Healthcare-NOW… now! Get a free book. We really need your support NOW. https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=2264 ;
7. Order beautiful Martin Luther King, Jr National Healthcare Month posters and our “Improved Medicare for All” booklet in Spanish or English. Bulk copies from our printers. prioritypress@optonline.org;
8 Plan to visit your Member of Congress in his/her local office during the first two weeks of April. Thank your members if they have signed onto H.R. 676. Insist that they do so if they have not;
9. Call or Fax Congressman Pete Stark’s office to be sure that H.R. 676 is a part of the agenda for his healthcare hearings in May. Phone: (202) 225-5065; Fax: (202) 226-3805;
10. Get your City Council, State Legislature, Democratic or Republican State Committee, Union, Faith Community, Club, Community Organization or Local Business to endorse H.R. 676. See the growing list of endorsers at http://www.healthcare-now.org/endorse676.php :
11. Get a copy of John Conyers’ inspirational 6-minute dvd “Giant Steps” from Healthcare-NOW. See it on You Tube.
12. See our home page to read about or use the power point about the problems with all of the other proposals being offered: http://www.Healthcare-now.org.
Don’t Complain; Organize!
Remember “We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For.”
http://www.healthcare-now.org
info@healthcare-now.org
See: Candidates Should Catch Up to American People on Universal Coverage (ThinkProgress.Org)
Many good things are happening across the nation as the single payer movement continues to develop. People ask the question, “How could this have happened?" How is it that there is only one healthcare plan in the nation that has a huge constituency of support? And we know the answer. It is because of your work.
Here are some of the exciting developments in the single payer movement:
1. We now have 62 co-sponsors of H.R. 676 in just two months following its reintroduction in this new Congress -- as a result of your efforts.
2. The AFL-CIO has joined us as an endorser of single payer. How did this happen? It happened because of the movement of local unions from the bottom up who studied the bill, endorsed it, and urged the AFL-CIO to join us over the past eighteen months. One volunteer, Kay Tillow, has worked tirelessly to make this happen.
3. Act-Up has joined us – one of the most militant organizations in the U.S. – the group that challenged Congress and the healthcare agencies to do the research and help to stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic in the 80’s and 90’s. Now they have made single payer, national healthcare their #1 issue.
4. The National Organization for Women has formally endorsed.
5. Newspapers all over the country are studying the issue, and many are endorsing. City councils are signing on. Two state democratic parties, New Hampshire and Washington State have endorsed single payer and will be pushing the national Democrats to move forward toward single payer in the coming election.
6. We met with the New York Times this week in a very good exchange on the issue.
7. And Congressman John Conyers is planning a briefing for Congress members and the public on April 24th in Washington, D.C. You are invited. Be in touch with joel.segal@mail.house.gov for more details.
One of the friends of single payer in the U.S. Congress is Maurice Hinchey. In addition to being a strong endorser of H.R. 676, he has introduced legislation that has forced the FDA to create new rules to protect us from the drug profiteers.
When we achieve a national single payer system in the United States, we will have a system where the single payer (probably Medicare) will negotiate the cost of all drugs for all of us and have a strong mechanism for protecting our people.
We will have several elements of good business practices as a part of our national healthcare program including “negotiating prices,” “eliminating the unnecessary middle man (the insurance companies)” and “purchasing in bulk” both durable medical equipment and prescription drugs since there will be 300 million of us in one large purchasing pool. This will be another of the great savings that will provide us with a quality healthcare system for all without spending any additional money.
Businesses, employees and employers will all save money. No more co-pays or deductibles and no more denials and out-of-pocket expenses for necessary medical care.
Hinchey’s legislation and the FDA’s response are described in today’s [NYTimes], F.D.A. Rule Limits Role of Advisers Tied to Industry. The new rules would bar government advisers who receive money from a drug or device maker from voting on that company's products. As the story notes, this is not the ultimate solution to the problem of FDA complicity with the drug profiteers, but it is a start.
H.R. 676, Conyers’ United States National Health Insurance Act, is the only bill in Congress that pushes for a non-profit national healthcare system that will serve us all. It is the only bill among the many that have been introduced recently and among the state bills that are being considered that eliminates the role of the insurance companies, both in government-funded programs such as Medicare and SCHIP (the child healthcare program) and in the healthcare fund that will provide excellent healthcare to all of us.
As a result of the elimination of the insurance companies’ role in healthcare, we will be able to cover one-third more healthcare. In other words, we could cover one-third more children if we didn’t have insurance companies in the middle of the SCHIP program. We can cover one-third more people in the United States and provide 100% better benefits for all of us with H.R. 676.
Under single payer, H.R. 676, we will eliminate the waiting lines that keep about 50 million of our people suffering and dying, and we will be able to provide much better benefits, doctors who don’t have to spend their time satisfying hundreds of insurance companies, hospitals that don’t have to spend billions of dollars on exacting payment for hundreds of insurance, government and individual payers, mental health care, drug and alcohol treatment for all who need it; payment for prescription drugs; long-term care (how many of us have no long-term care insurance now?) and more.
"Everybody in; nobody out!”
Here are some of the things that you can do immediately to push forward real single payer legislation, H.R. 676 (see more ideas at our website, http://www.healthcare-now.org):
1. Visit the editorial board of your newspaper;
2. Send letters to the editors and to columnists and writers of newspapers nationwide including the New York Times editorial board;
3. Get on the list for newspaper articles on a daily basis (write joykal1@aol.com)
4. Hold and event or hearing this coming month (April) or soon in your neighborhood or state (See guidelines for organizing on our website. http://www.healthcare-now.org
5. Call us for organizing suggestions. 1-800-453-1305 ; info@healthcare-now.org;
6. Make a contribution to Healthcare-NOW… now! Get a free book. We really need your support NOW. https://secure.groundspring
7. Order beautiful Martin Luther King, Jr National Healthcare Month posters and our “Improved Medicare for All” booklet in Spanish or English. Bulk copies from our printers. prioritypress@optonline.org;
8 Plan to visit your Member of Congress in his/her local office during the first two weeks of April. Thank your members if they have signed onto H.R. 676. Insist that they do so if they have not;
9. Call or Fax Congressman Pete Stark’s office to be sure that H.R. 676 is a part of the agenda for his healthcare hearings in May. Phone: (202) 225-5065; Fax: (202) 226-3805;
10. Get your City Council, State Legislature, Democratic or Republican State Committee, Union, Faith Community, Club, Community Organization or Local Business to endorse H.R. 676. See the growing list of endorsers at http://www.healthcare-now.org
11. Get a copy of John Conyers’ inspirational 6-minute dvd “Giant Steps” from Healthcare-NOW. See it on You Tube.
12. See our home page to read about or use the power point about the problems with all of the other proposals being offered: http://www.Healthcare-now.org.
Don’t Complain; Organize!
Remember “We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For.”
http://www.healthcare-now.org
info@healthcare-now.org
See: Candidates Should Catch Up to American People on Universal Coverage (ThinkProgress.Org)
"I did it!"
The confession of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- or "KSM" as a terrorism expert on NPR kept calling him as though he were a celebrity like "Paris" or "Brangelina," which I guess to the terrorism crowd he probably is -- begins to take on the outline of a routine on Saturday Night Live. Before it's over, besides the many spectacular crimes he claims to have masterminded, expect him to 
take responsibility for fathering the baby of Anna Nicole Smith,* breaking up the Beatles, and kidnapping Judge Crater.
As for his "plans" -- to destroy Israeli and American embassies, military vessels, oil tankers, the stock exchange, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, Heathrow and Big Ben, NATO headquarters in Brussels, and 12 -- exactly 12 -- civilian airplanes "full of passengers," etc.; to assassinate Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Pope John Paul II (and to think the current pope was worried about Bob Dylan), Paki Prez Pervez Musharraf, et al; and...well...I "plan" to win the lottery.
The confession will clear a lot of cases and spruce up Bush's resume, which is all to the good, but what I really want to know is, is there actually an oil company in Sumatra, as the Times quotes the confession, "owned by the Jewish former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger"? How'd Henry the K pull that off? Now, as my dad used to say, that's interesting.
*"Please Note: No subscriptions for the Video Diary are being accepted." Is there no coffin cam?
take responsibility for fathering the baby of Anna Nicole Smith,* breaking up the Beatles, and kidnapping Judge Crater.As for his "plans" -- to destroy Israeli and American embassies, military vessels, oil tankers, the stock exchange, the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, Heathrow and Big Ben, NATO headquarters in Brussels, and 12 -- exactly 12 -- civilian airplanes "full of passengers," etc.; to assassinate Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Pope John Paul II (and to think the current pope was worried about Bob Dylan), Paki Prez Pervez Musharraf, et al; and...well...I "plan" to win the lottery.
The confession will clear a lot of cases and spruce up Bush's resume, which is all to the good, but what I really want to know is, is there actually an oil company in Sumatra, as the Times quotes the confession, "owned by the Jewish former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger"? How'd Henry the K pull that off? Now, as my dad used to say, that's interesting.
*"Please Note: No subscriptions for the Video Diary are being accepted." Is there no coffin cam?
2008: Obama's Democracy Index Bill
This is from Dan Tokaji's Election Law blog:
Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has instituted the "Voter Advocate and Democracy Index Act of 2007," designed to institute a system by which states' election systems could be measured. A release describing the bill may be found here and the text here courtesy of Rick Hasen.
The bill would create an Office of the Voter Advocate within the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Among the responsibilities of this new office, as described in Sen. Obama's release, would be to measure:
The idea of creating a mechanism by which to measure the health of each state's election system is an excellent one. Despite all the attention devoted to election administration these days -- or maybe because of it -- it is sometimes difficult to tell where there are really serious problems, as opposed to partisans angling for position. Creating a sense of performance standards is a worthy enterprise, one that in the long run could make our election system function much better.
That said, it will undoubtedly be a major challenge to get a bill of this nature passed. There will almost certainly be resistance on the part of Republicans, at least to the way the bill is presently framed. Senator Obama's bill focuses on issues of access and, if the debate over HAVA a few years ago is any indication, Republicans are likely to be more interested in issues of "integrity" like combatting voter fraud. I'd also expect resistance from some election administrators, who are likely nervous about the possibility that their states will look bad.
Designing a fair and workable Democracy Index will also be a major undertaking. Still, it's a worthy enterprise, and I very much hope that some version of this bill is eventually enacted into law.
Read more about election law issues at Dan Tokaji's blog.
Other sources on election law include:
Election Law Blog (Rick Hasen)
Election Updates (Michael Alvarez & Thad Hall)
ElectionLine.org
Votelaw Blog (Ed Still)
Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has instituted the "Voter Advocate and Democracy Index Act of 2007," designed to institute a system by which states' election systems could be measured. A release describing the bill may be found here and the text here courtesy of Rick Hasen.
The bill would create an Office of the Voter Advocate within the Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Among the responsibilities of this new office, as described in Sen. Obama's release, would be to measure:
- The amount of time spent by voters waiting in line;The bill draws on an idea by Professor Heather Gerken of the the Yale Law School, which appeared in the Legal Times. After my colleague Ned Foley wrote a weekly comment in response, Professor Gerken offered these further thoughts here on the EL@M site a few weeks ago.
- The number of voters incorrectly directed to the wrong polling places;
- The rate of voter ballots discarded or not counted along with an explanation;
- Provisional voting rates and the percentage of provisional votes cast but not counted;
- The number and description of election day complaints; and
- The rate of voting system malfunctions and the time required on average to get the systems back online
The idea of creating a mechanism by which to measure the health of each state's election system is an excellent one. Despite all the attention devoted to election administration these days -- or maybe because of it -- it is sometimes difficult to tell where there are really serious problems, as opposed to partisans angling for position. Creating a sense of performance standards is a worthy enterprise, one that in the long run could make our election system function much better.
That said, it will undoubtedly be a major challenge to get a bill of this nature passed. There will almost certainly be resistance on the part of Republicans, at least to the way the bill is presently framed. Senator Obama's bill focuses on issues of access and, if the debate over HAVA a few years ago is any indication, Republicans are likely to be more interested in issues of "integrity" like combatting voter fraud. I'd also expect resistance from some election administrators, who are likely nervous about the possibility that their states will look bad.
Designing a fair and workable Democracy Index will also be a major undertaking. Still, it's a worthy enterprise, and I very much hope that some version of this bill is eventually enacted into law.
Read more about election law issues at Dan Tokaji's blog.
Other sources on election law include:
Election Law Blog (Rick Hasen)
Election Updates (Michael Alvarez & Thad Hall)
ElectionLine.org
Votelaw Blog (Ed Still)
Required Reading: Newshounds - "We watch FOX so you don't have to"
Smart, thorough, succinct...and much more fun than actually watching Faux News yourself. Subscribe to the rss feed. <http://www.newshounds.us/>
NWO: The Cops Want to Digitally Read Your Lips
Not content that every square inch of urban space is under surveillance by video cameras, researchers at the University of East Anglia have embarked on a project to develop computer lip-reading systems in the name of crime-stopping. The three-year project will collect data for a lip-reading data base and use it to create machines that automatically convert videos of lip-motions into text, building on work already carried out at the UEA to develop state-of-the-art speech reading systems.
The university is teaming up with the Centre for Vision, Speech & Signal Processing at Surrey University, where accurate and reliable face and lip trackers have been built, and the Scientific Development Branch of the Home Office, never happier than when it is pushing something that it thinks will enhance police powers.
The team also hope to carry out computerized lip-reading of other languages. Arabic, say?
Besides police work, there could be other potential uses for the technology, such as, to take one example, using the technology in a mobile phone or on a dash board for speech recognition under difficult conditions. Other uses are not what is driving funding, however.
The question is, as it has been since long before 9-11, how much freedom and privacy are we willing to sacrifice in the name of order and security?
The university is teaming up with the Centre for Vision, Speech & Signal Processing at Surrey University, where accurate and reliable face and lip trackers have been built, and the Scientific Development Branch of the Home Office, never happier than when it is pushing something that it thinks will enhance police powers.
The team also hope to carry out computerized lip-reading of other languages. Arabic, say?
Besides police work, there could be other potential uses for the technology, such as, to take one example, using the technology in a mobile phone or on a dash board for speech recognition under difficult conditions. Other uses are not what is driving funding, however.
The question is, as it has been since long before 9-11, how much freedom and privacy are we willing to sacrifice in the name of order and security?
Action: OpenCongress.org
The Sunlight Foundation has a new project: "OpenCongress.org....[a] joint effort with the amazing team from the Participatory Politics Foundation -- a group based in Worcester, Mass. that builds open-source software and web tools for civic engagement. Think of this as a user-friendly Thomas, on steroids. We've brought together critically important information about what is happening in Congress -- legislation and issue focused -- and combined that with what bloggers and the mainstream media are most talking about. We've added a component of social wisdom tracking what's hot and what's most-viewed on the site itself, along with what others are writing about. There are lots of links to other Sunlight projects like Congresspedia and Sunlight grantees like OpenSecrets.org. We are aiming to to offer a comprehensive, understandable, user-friendly snapshot of every bill and Member of Congress." -- from the website. <http://www.opencongress.org/>
The Beach: Safety
Be Prepared: Everything you wanted to know about Rip Currents but were afraid to ask (U.S. Weather Service) was just posted on lol: library of links.
More free Wi-Fi Spots in LA County
City of Angles
The Smug Little Village by the Sea
Mall Town
90210
Pollutionville
For free wireless everywhere, Forbes.com's Access Spots: <http://forbes.anchorfree.com/>
The Smug Little Village by the Sea
Mall Town
90210
Pollutionville
For free wireless everywhere, Forbes.com's Access Spots: <http://forbes.anchorfree.com/>
Iran must die! (so I can be president)
Democratic leaders in Congress allowed themselves to be stampeded into war not, as they would have us believe, because they were misled by faulty intelligence -- if we, and by we I mean everybody out here in the hinterlands, average readers of the New York Times 3000 miles from the Beltway, if we knew the WMDs and the ties to Al Qaeda were bogus, certainly the senators knew.
Note that among the solons who voted no on the war authorization -- and here's an honor roll for you: Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Chafee (R-RI), Conrad (D-ND), Dayton (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (D-FL), Inouye (D-HI), Jeffords (I-VT), Kennedy (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wellstone (D-MN), Wyden (D-OR) -- not one was burdened by the illusion that s/he was destined to be president.
The votes of Kerry, Edwards, Clinton, Biden, Dodd, et al, were not stupid or ignorant: they were cowardly, the defensive actions of ambitious politicians who were determined not to be on the wrong side of the question, Who lost Iraq?
Now the Bush administration is back with its next war, trumpeting as fact questionable evidence of NWMDs -- nuclear weapons of mass destruction -- in the hands of the mullahs -- in English, an ugly sounding word, but try substituting "priest" or "minister" -- in Tehran.
The build-up is happening on multiple fronts. The new head of CENTCOM, the military's Central Command responsible for U.S. security interests in 25 nations that stretch from the Horn of Africa through the Arabian Gulf into Central Asia, is not, as common sense might suggest, a counterinsurgency specialist, but the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. "Fox" Fallon, who, aside from being a dependable water-carrier for Bush, presumably knows a thing or two about co-ordinating air strikes and deploying naval blockades. In the Gulf, the carrier group Stennis is being sent to back up the Eisenhower. Minesweepers are being deployed in the Strait of Hormuz. American fighter-bombers have returned to Incirlik in Turkey. Upgraded Patriot missiles are being moved to Kuwait and Qatar.
Quite a lot of firepower to bring to a fight for hearts and minds.
Bush's anti-Iran rhetoric is ratcheting up as well. When he announced his surge, the commander-in-chief took time out to note that Iran "is providing material support for attacks on American troops....we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," just as he took time out during the post-911 assault on Afghanistan to soften us up for his planned attack on Iraq. This latest threat to launch an illegal preemptive military operation was followed by shoot-to-kill orders to U.S. troops encountering Iranians aiding the insurgency. And, in text-book perfect provocation, Iranian officials and Iraqis returning from Iran are being seized in Iraq and interrogated by U.S. troops.
Presidentially inclined Democrats do not plan to be on the wrong side of the Who lost Iran? question, either.
In January, at the Herzliya Conference on Israeli national policy, John Edwards said that keeping Iran from possessing nuclear weapons "is the greatest challenge of our generation." Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation got Hitler; we get Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Sounding like Bush-lite, Edwards said, "To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table. Let me reiterate -- all options." In the run-up to the 2012 election, will Edwards be demonstrating his integrity by confessing he was wrong on Iran?
Not to be out-cojonesed, at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, self-described as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," Hillary Clinton, trumping Edwards, said, "In dealing with this threat, no option can be taken off the table. We need to use every tool at our disposal including the threat and use of military force." Threat and use. (Apparently not buying the romantic notion that we can have him back as Hillary's vice-president, Bill Clinton warned against a military strike on Iran, saying in a speech at Kansas State University that it was unclear whether "we could take out whatever incipient nuclear efforts they have," and that even if we could, it is "not clear it would be the most effective strategy." Note to Bill: call Hillary).
Barack Obama, before he became Eirana to Hillary's Ares -- don't you just love these sexual reversals?, when he was still merely a U.S. Senate candidate (not so long ago, don't forget), the freshman senator suggested that the United States might one day have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs. One man's surgical strike is another man's unprovoked act of aggression, of course. And you have to wonder about a Democrat who feels it necessary to stay to the right of the hapless Alan Keyes.
Then there is former US vice president and once and future presidential wannabe Al Gore, the Candidate McDreamy of Democrats of a particularly soft-minded sort, who has lashed out at Iran’s government, denouncing it as a threat to “the future of the world." The Future of the World? Wow. That sounds a whole lot worse than the greatest challenge of our generation. In an address in Saudi Arabia to the Jeddah Economic Forum, "the think tank of the Middle East," Gore said “corrupt leadership,” combined with President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israeli outbursts, should raise alarums all over the world.
So much for the likely Democratic nominees.
For the record, as recently as February 24 in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Bill Richardson called "for the United States to engage directly with the Iranians and to lead a global diplomatic offensive to prevent them from building nuclear weapons. We need tough, direct negotiations, not just with Iran but also with our allies, especially Russia, to get them to support us in presenting Iran with credible carrots and sticks."
But what does he know? He's not a "serious candidate." He's just running for vice-president. Or secretary of state.
Note that among the solons who voted no on the war authorization -- and here's an honor roll for you: Akaka (D-HI), Bingaman (D-NM), Boxer (D-CA), Byrd (D-WV), Chafee (R-RI), Conrad (D-ND), Dayton (D-MN), Durbin (D-IL), Feingold (D-WI), Graham (D-FL), Inouye (D-HI), Jeffords (I-VT), Kennedy (D-MA), Leahy (D-VT), Levin (D-MI), Mikulski (D-MD), Murray (D-WA), Reed (D-RI), Sarbanes (D-MD), Stabenow (D-MI), Wellstone (D-MN), Wyden (D-OR) -- not one was burdened by the illusion that s/he was destined to be president.
The votes of Kerry, Edwards, Clinton, Biden, Dodd, et al, were not stupid or ignorant: they were cowardly, the defensive actions of ambitious politicians who were determined not to be on the wrong side of the question, Who lost Iraq?
Now the Bush administration is back with its next war, trumpeting as fact questionable evidence of NWMDs -- nuclear weapons of mass destruction -- in the hands of the mullahs -- in English, an ugly sounding word, but try substituting "priest" or "minister" -- in Tehran.
The build-up is happening on multiple fronts. The new head of CENTCOM, the military's Central Command responsible for U.S. security interests in 25 nations that stretch from the Horn of Africa through the Arabian Gulf into Central Asia, is not, as common sense might suggest, a counterinsurgency specialist, but the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. "Fox" Fallon, who, aside from being a dependable water-carrier for Bush, presumably knows a thing or two about co-ordinating air strikes and deploying naval blockades. In the Gulf, the carrier group Stennis is being sent to back up the Eisenhower. Minesweepers are being deployed in the Strait of Hormuz. American fighter-bombers have returned to Incirlik in Turkey. Upgraded Patriot missiles are being moved to Kuwait and Qatar.
Quite a lot of firepower to bring to a fight for hearts and minds.
Bush's anti-Iran rhetoric is ratcheting up as well. When he announced his surge, the commander-in-chief took time out to note that Iran "is providing material support for attacks on American troops....we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," just as he took time out during the post-911 assault on Afghanistan to soften us up for his planned attack on Iraq. This latest threat to launch an illegal preemptive military operation was followed by shoot-to-kill orders to U.S. troops encountering Iranians aiding the insurgency. And, in text-book perfect provocation, Iranian officials and Iraqis returning from Iran are being seized in Iraq and interrogated by U.S. troops.
Presidentially inclined Democrats do not plan to be on the wrong side of the Who lost Iran? question, either.
In January, at the Herzliya Conference on Israeli national policy, John Edwards said that keeping Iran from possessing nuclear weapons "is the greatest challenge of our generation." Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation got Hitler; we get Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Sounding like Bush-lite, Edwards said, "To ensure that Iran never gets nuclear weapons, we need to keep all options on the table. Let me reiterate -- all options." In the run-up to the 2012 election, will Edwards be demonstrating his integrity by confessing he was wrong on Iran?
Not to be out-cojonesed, at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, self-described as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," Hillary Clinton, trumping Edwards, said, "In dealing with this threat, no option can be taken off the table. We need to use every tool at our disposal including the threat and use of military force." Threat and use. (Apparently not buying the romantic notion that we can have him back as Hillary's vice-president, Bill Clinton warned against a military strike on Iran, saying in a speech at Kansas State University that it was unclear whether "we could take out whatever incipient nuclear efforts they have," and that even if we could, it is "not clear it would be the most effective strategy." Note to Bill: call Hillary).
Barack Obama, before he became Eirana to Hillary's Ares -- don't you just love these sexual reversals?, when he was still merely a U.S. Senate candidate (not so long ago, don't forget), the freshman senator suggested that the United States might one day have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs. One man's surgical strike is another man's unprovoked act of aggression, of course. And you have to wonder about a Democrat who feels it necessary to stay to the right of the hapless Alan Keyes.
Then there is former US vice president and once and future presidential wannabe Al Gore, the Candidate McDreamy of Democrats of a particularly soft-minded sort, who has lashed out at Iran’s government, denouncing it as a threat to “the future of the world." The Future of the World? Wow. That sounds a whole lot worse than the greatest challenge of our generation. In an address in Saudi Arabia to the Jeddah Economic Forum, "the think tank of the Middle East," Gore said “corrupt leadership,” combined with President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israeli outbursts, should raise alarums all over the world.
So much for the likely Democratic nominees.
For the record, as recently as February 24 in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Bill Richardson called "for the United States to engage directly with the Iranians and to lead a global diplomatic offensive to prevent them from building nuclear weapons. We need tough, direct negotiations, not just with Iran but also with our allies, especially Russia, to get them to support us in presenting Iran with credible carrots and sticks."
But what does he know? He's not a "serious candidate." He's just running for vice-president. Or secretary of state.
Outsiders: Wild Man Fischer
Barnes & Barnes gave the world Fish Heads, the most requested song in the history of the Doctor Demento show, and produced two albums by Wild Man Fischer, “the father of outsider music” to people who don't know who Harry Partch is. Larry Fischer, arguably the most 
bizarre recording artist ever to sign with a major label, has two albums -- Pronounced Normal and Nothing Scary -- being reissued on Collectors’ Choice Music, along with Barnes & Barnes’ classic Voobaha album.
Barnes & Barnes was Art and Artie Barnes, noms du disques for childhood friends Bill Mumy (yes, Will Robinson on Lost in Space) and Robert Haimer. They weren't trying to make it big; they just wanted to get played by Doctor Demento. Drawing on 50s and 60s comic books, including EC (which specialized in horror, crime and sci-fi), pre-superhero Marvel, and R. Crumb, they created such demented masterpieces as The Vomit Song, Boogie Woogie Amputee and Fish Heads, the latter spawning a popular music video on MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central that Rolling Stone named #57 on its all time best video list. For a while, they were signed to mega-manager Bill Siddons, who handled the Doors.
Voobaha was issued in 1976, then digitally remastered and reissued as a CD on Rhino. Haimer went back to the original tapes to prepare for the Collectors’ Choice reissue, and added some previously unreleased tracks, I Gotta Get a Fake I.D., plus alternate takes of Political Statement, Boogie Woogie Amputee and Fish Heads, so make sure you're getting the new release if you buy.
L.A. singer/songwriter Fischer's first album, recorded in the late ‘60s by Frank Zappa for Bizarre Records, spawned the underground hit Merry Go Round and the brief monologue I Used To Be Shy. Fischer was in and out of mental institutions and seldom kept an address for longer than a couple of months. His second album, Wildmania (already reissued by Collectors’ Choice) was one of the very first Rhino lps. But that didn’t mean that Rhino founders Richard Foos and Harold Bronson could readily locate him. Barnes & Barnes, however, were up for the Alan Lomax-like challenge and somehow found the mostly homeless Fischer. They were delighted to discover that he was a fan of Fish Heads. The session for Pronounced Normal followed, its title inspired by the song The Wild Man Fischer Story from his first album.
One track, The Bouillabaisse, was intended to be a psychedelic dream, his outsider Sgt. Pepper interlude -- all good, until Fischer became convinced, according to Mumy’s liner notes, that the song contained subliminal messages and that Barnes & Barnes, Demento, Zappa and “Weird Al” Yankovic, among others, were conspiring to sever his penis, chop him into little pieces and throw him to the sharks. Although he disappeared soon after, he began to phone the Barneses again around the time of the album’s 1981 release -- sometimes many times a day. The producers seized the moment to take on one more album, the 32-track Nothing Scary, released in 1984 and containing such gems as Derailroaded, Larry & the New Wave and Music Business Shark.
Resources:
The Legend Of Wild Man Fischer by Eichhorn and Williams
Yeah: The Essential Barnes & Barnes
Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music (The Shaggs, Daniel Johnston, Joe Meek, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, Tiny Tim, etc.)
Songs in the Key of Z, Vol. 2: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music (Shooby Taylor, B. J. Snowden, Eddie Murray Tangela Tricoli, etc.)
bizarre recording artist ever to sign with a major label, has two albums -- Pronounced Normal and Nothing Scary -- being reissued on Collectors’ Choice Music, along with Barnes & Barnes’ classic Voobaha album.Barnes & Barnes was Art and Artie Barnes, noms du disques for childhood friends Bill Mumy (yes, Will Robinson on Lost in Space) and Robert Haimer. They weren't trying to make it big; they just wanted to get played by Doctor Demento. Drawing on 50s and 60s comic books, including EC (which specialized in horror, crime and sci-fi), pre-superhero Marvel, and R. Crumb, they created such demented masterpieces as The Vomit Song, Boogie Woogie Amputee and Fish Heads, the latter spawning a popular music video on MTV, VH1 and Comedy Central that Rolling Stone named #57 on its all time best video list. For a while, they were signed to mega-manager Bill Siddons, who handled the Doors.
Voobaha was issued in 1976, then digitally remastered and reissued as a CD on Rhino. Haimer went back to the original tapes to prepare for the Collectors’ Choice reissue, and added some previously unreleased tracks, I Gotta Get a Fake I.D., plus alternate takes of Political Statement, Boogie Woogie Amputee and Fish Heads, so make sure you're getting the new release if you buy.
L.A. singer/songwriter Fischer's first album, recorded in the late ‘60s by Frank Zappa for Bizarre Records, spawned the underground hit Merry Go Round and the brief monologue I Used To Be Shy. Fischer was in and out of mental institutions and seldom kept an address for longer than a couple of months. His second album, Wildmania (already reissued by Collectors’ Choice) was one of the very first Rhino lps. But that didn’t mean that Rhino founders Richard Foos and Harold Bronson could readily locate him. Barnes & Barnes, however, were up for the Alan Lomax-like challenge and somehow found the mostly homeless Fischer. They were delighted to discover that he was a fan of Fish Heads. The session for Pronounced Normal followed, its title inspired by the song The Wild Man Fischer Story from his first album.
One track, The Bouillabaisse, was intended to be a psychedelic dream, his outsider Sgt. Pepper interlude -- all good, until Fischer became convinced, according to Mumy’s liner notes, that the song contained subliminal messages and that Barnes & Barnes, Demento, Zappa and “Weird Al” Yankovic, among others, were conspiring to sever his penis, chop him into little pieces and throw him to the sharks. Although he disappeared soon after, he began to phone the Barneses again around the time of the album’s 1981 release -- sometimes many times a day. The producers seized the moment to take on one more album, the 32-track Nothing Scary, released in 1984 and containing such gems as Derailroaded, Larry & the New Wave and Music Business Shark.
Resources:
The Legend Of Wild Man Fischer by Eichhorn and Williams
Yeah: The Essential Barnes & Barnes
Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music (The Shaggs, Daniel Johnston, Joe Meek, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, Tiny Tim, etc.)
Songs in the Key of Z, Vol. 2: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music (Shooby Taylor, B. J. Snowden, Eddie Murray Tangela Tricoli, etc.)
Listening to...
...Naturally by Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings on the sound 
system at Vic's Prospect coffee house in Longmont, Colorado. Hard to believe this band has been doing its raw, 70s-style funk-threaded thing only since 2002. When the first cut came on, I thought it was Jerry Williams with somebody like Bettye LaVette. 
This must-have recording isn't even her best: that accolade is reserved for Dap Dippin' with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, their propulsive 2002 debut that includes their cover of This Land Is Your Land used in the I Love New York ad. Both albums belong in the collections of everyone who digs classic soul.
system at Vic's Prospect coffee house in Longmont, Colorado. Hard to believe this band has been doing its raw, 70s-style funk-threaded thing only since 2002. When the first cut came on, I thought it was Jerry Williams with somebody like Bettye LaVette. This must-have recording isn't even her best: that accolade is reserved for Dap Dippin' with Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, their propulsive 2002 debut that includes their cover of This Land Is Your Land used in the I Love New York ad. Both albums belong in the collections of everyone who digs classic soul.
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