Day: August 15, 2008

The French Chef Was A Spy

Where do you look when you want to recruit spies? Just about everywhere, judging from the formerly top-secret records of the World War II agency that became today’s CIA.

There was the young woman who became TV chef Julia Child. And labor lawyer Arthur Goldberg who became a Supreme Court justice. And young scholar Arthur Schlesinger who became a presidential adviser.

The legendary chef is one of several high-profile figures who were involved with the undercover World War II intelligence agency, called the Office of Strategic Services.

Yesterday, the National Archives released the names of Americans who worked as civilian and military spies for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.

Along with Child, other spies for the OSS include former Chicago White Socks catcher Moe Berg, Godfather actor Sterling Hayden, and author Thomas Braden who penned Eight is Enough, the book that inspired the popular 1970s television series.

Where have you people been?  This is common knowledge.  Julia even spoke about it in many interviews over the years before her death.  May I suggest that you people learn to pay attention and little will surprise you.

Peace!  Out!

Who Is Fueling Obama?

The New York Times notes that, “in an effort to cast himself as independent of the influence of money on politics, Senator Barack Obama often highlights the campaign contributions of $200 or less that have amounted to fully half of the $340 million he has collected so far. But records show that one-third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more: a total of $112 million, more than Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival, or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries, raised in contributions of that size. Behind those larger donations is a phalanx of more than 500 Obama ‘bundlers,’ fund-raisers who have each collected contributions totaling $50,000 or more. Many of the bundlers come from industries with critical interests in Washington. … Given his decision not to accept public financing, Mr. Obama is counting on his bundlers to help him raise $300 million for his general-election campaign and another $180 million for the Democratic National Committee. An analysis of campaign finance records shows that about two-thirds of his bundlers are concentrated in four major industries: law, securities and investments, real estate and entertainment.”

Source: The New York Times, August 6, 2008

Unions Go After Wal-Mart On Elections

Prominent labor groups are seeking an investigation into whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. violated federal election laws by telling employees that electing Democrats would lead to passage of legislation making it easier to unionize companies.

In a letter to be delivered as early as Thursday, the labor groups are asking the Federal Election Commission to determine whether the company “made prohibited corporate expenditures” by organizing meetings across the country to warn employees that a Democratic president would back legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which the company opposes. The groups say such statements amount to advocating the defeat of Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, in the November election.

Companies aren’t permitted under federal election law to expressly advocate to hourly employees the election or defeat of specific candidates. The complaint cites as its source an Aug. 1 front-page article in The Wall Street Journal that reported the Bentonville, Ark., retailer held meetings with thousands of store managers and department supervisors across the country to discuss the legislation.

Obama’s Tax Plan

With John McCain attacking him as a tax raiser, Sen. Barack Obama tied off the loose ends of his tax policies today, saying he would set the tax rates paid on most dividends and capital gains at 20 percent, substantially below where they stood during most of President Clinton’s presidency and lower than most Republicans expected.

He also clarified that that a proposal to impose Social Security taxes on incomes over $250,000 would not start until at least a decade from now.

The new details of the Obama tax plan are not new policies but are clarifications on vague statements from the senator from Illinois in the past. Obama has said for some time that he would raise dividends and capital gains tax rates from the 15-percent level reached in President Bush’s 2003 tax cuts, but he put the range somewhere between 20 percent and 28 percent. In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today, Obama aides and advisers picked the lowest point in that range — a decision made as McCain pummels Obama as a tax hiker with a barrage of ads running during the Olympics.

By choosing a 20 percent tax, Obama is bringing tax rates on investments up to a mid-way point for families earning more than $250,000. Families below that level would continue paying the existing 15 percent rate. Obama economic aides Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee noted that a 20 percent capital gains rate is well below the level set by Ronald Reagan in 1986. And Bush didn’t even think to lower the rate on dividends in his first round of tax cuts.

Can They Fix Social Security?

More than 50 million Americans will receive benefits this year, and 164 million workers are paying taxes into the system in expectation of getting money back when they retire or if they become too disabled to work. More than 6 million receive survivor benefits.
The average benefit is slightly more than $1,000 a month, amounting to about 40% of all income received by the elderly. For about a third of seniors, Social Security accounts for 90% of their retirement income.
Social Security is funded by a payroll tax equal to 12.4% of wages and salaries up to a maximum of $102,000. The tax is split between the worker and their employers. Unearned income, such as capital gains, dividends or interest, is not taxed. Most workers pay more in payrolls taxes than they do in federal income taxes.
Obama’s plan
Read more about Obama’s ideas.
Obama doesn’t want to cut benefits. “Obama will make it a top priority of his administration to protect Social Security benefits for current and future beneficiaries alike,” according to the position paper on his campaign website. “And he does not believe it is necessary or fair to hard-working seniors to raise the retirement age.”
That leaves raising revenue, which means higher taxes for somebody.
“The first place to look for ways to strengthen Social Security is the payroll tax system,” his campaign says. Rather than impose the payroll tax on all income above $102,000 to raise the money Social Security needs, Obama has suggested a sort of “doughnut hole” approach. Income between $102,000 and $250,000 wouldn’t have any payroll tax, but incomes above $250,000 would.
About 6% of American workers make more than $102,000, and many of them consider themselves middle class. About 3% of workers make more than $250,000 a year.
McCain’s plan
Read more about McCain’s ideas.
A solution to Social Security’s funding problems can’t be imposed by either political party, McCain has said. The only way to fix the system is to do what Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill did in 1983: get leaders of both parties in a room to come up with a plan.
McCain was a strong supporter of Bush’s plan to create private retirement accounts funded by payroll taxes.
He hasn’t backed away from that support, but he hasn’t made it a centerpiece of his campaign either. He did bring it up in one appearance on CNN: “I want young workers to be able to, if they choose, to take part of their own money, which is their taxes, and put it in an account which has their name on it.”
Diverting tax revenues into private accounts, whatever their impact might be on the individual’s retirement security, wouldn’t help the solvency of Social Security because current benefits would still have to be funded. “It doesn’t solve the arithmetic problem,” Elmendorf said.
NOw if you would like a more vague idea of fixing Social Security, it would take a massive amount of research.  These are the vaguest of the vague.

SCHIP Braces For Cuts

It’s a case of the good news being reported right before the ax falls. Providing children with health insurance makes a huge difference in whether kids receive the care they need, especially if they are chronically ill with such things as asthma or diabetes. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a state-by-state report today, “A Needed Lifeline.” The report was conducted by researchers at the University of Minnesota.

Insured children are three times more likely to have visited a doctor’s office in the course of a year than are uninsured children, according to the report. About 60% of insured children are covered by private insurance plans, and about a third of children are covered under public programs, such as Medicaid (MediCal in California) or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The L.A. Times, on Nov. 26, 2007, wrote about how the children’s program can affect even middle-class families. The new report shows that although 41% of chronically ill kids who had no health insurance skipped needed care, only 10% of those covered under public programs skipped needed care.

Last year, a federal directive with an Aug. 18 deadline came down from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that put some aspects of California’s program at risk. For example, some county programs — with federal permission — that have enrolled children in families earning 300% of the federal poverty level may lose that permission for new enrollees. And all newly enrolled children must be uninsured for a year to qualify, according to the new rules. The old rule said they had to be uninsured for only three months before they could be signed up. Yesterday, the state decided not to comply with the new rules, according to CQ Healthbeat, saying that key requirements run counter to California law.

Congress has voted several short-term extensions of the SCHIP program, the most recent to expire in March 2009. But between now and then — you may have noticed — there’s a general election, and state agencies can’t be sure what will happen to programs for uninsured children. On top of that uncertainty, the new CMS rules have just about everyone scratching their heads.

So the SCHIP program, a success story in dropping the number of uninsured children from 11.1 million in 1998 to 7.9 million in 2004, has just received yet more evidence of its value from the new Robert Wood Johnson study. But with the deadline for the new CMS rules just four days away and no one certain how the feds will respond to California’s refusal to comply, with a change in president certain, and possible changes in every other elective office in the land, is it any wonder that states just don’t know what to do about the millions of children who are still uninsured?

Nukes: A Risky Technology

An opposing view of the latest hot button issue that McCain is pushing.

For several years, the nuclear industry has been touting nuclear power as a major solution for global warming. In fact, an increase in U.S. nuclear capacity could help reduce global warming — but it could increase threats to public safety and security at the same time.

Nuclear power is an unforgiving technology that requires vigilance by reactor operators and federal regulators. A large-scale release of radioactive material — triggered by an accident or terrorist attack — could kill thousands of people from radiation poisoning within weeks and tens of thousands from cancer within decades, and cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damages.

U.S. nuclear power already is riskier than it should, and could, be. While there has not been a serious U.S. accident since the partial fuel meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979, there have been some close calls. In 2002, for example, the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio came within months of a major accident when plant owners and federal inspectors looked the other way while corrosion nearly ate through the steel vessel housing the radioactive fuel, leaving only a thin metal layer to prevent cooling water from leaking.

U.S. nuclear plants also are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Lax federal standards only require reactor owners to protect their plants from a relatively small team of attackers using unsophisticated weapons.

Certain new reactor designs appear to be safer and less vulnerable to attack but likely will be more expensive to build. And spiraling costs for raw materials and labor already have pushed the estimated price tag for new U.S. reactors as high as $12 billion.

Because the federal government does not require new reactors to be safer and more secure than current ones, there is little incentive for utilities to opt for more expensive, safer models. Thus, increasing the number of U.S. reactors would also increase the overall risk to the public — unless U.S. regulations are strengthened to require safer reactors.

Whether or not U.S. utilities build new power plants, the industry and its federal regulators must make safety and security their top priority.

As published in the USA Today.

Clinton Returns To The Spotlight

After weeks of maneuvering aimed at producing a display of unity when Democrats gather in Denver later this month, Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign announced yesterday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will be formally nominated and her name included in a roll-call vote at the Democratic National Convention.

The move represented the latest, and potentially most important, symbolic gesture by Obama to Clinton supporters, and could blunt the threat of an upheaval on the convention floor. Some Clinton backers have threatened to stage a walkout or leave Denver altogether after she speaks on Aug. 26 to protest what they view as a flawed and sexist party nominating process.

In a joint statement, the two camps said the decision to enter Clinton’s name into nomination was mutual, and they countered the idea that she had forced her way back into the spotlight.

“I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton’s historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion,” Obama said in the statement. It , which went on to say that he “encouraged” the roll-call vote as a way to recognize “the historic race she ran and the fact that she was the first woman to compete in all of our nation’s primary contests.”

How, exactly, the roll call will work remains an open question, advisers on both sides said. After having her name entered into nomination, Clinton could then ask her delegates to support Obama, bypassing the long process of reading names aloud. But several advisers said they think there will be some kind of roll call, which could begin as early as Tuesday night of the convention. As a superdelegate, Clinton is expected to vote for Obama.

OK, I said in the past that the convention could get ugly and now they are presenting the dissenters with a perfect opportunity to cause as much disruption as they are willing to try.