The Washington Monthly

The Washington Monthly

December 29, 2009

ABSTAINING FROM MAKING SENSE.... If there's one thing conservatives claim to hate, it's wasteful federal spending on programs that have been proven not to work.

Unless we're talking about funding for abstinence programs, in which case conservatives lovewasteful federal spending on programs that have been proven not to work.

Proponents of sex education classes that focus on encouraging teenagers to remain virgins until marriage are hoping that the rescue plan for the nation's health-care system will also save their programs, which are facing extinction because of a cutoff of federal funding.

The health-care reform legislation pending in the Senate includes $50 million for programs that states could use to try to reduce pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease among adolescents by teaching to them to delay when they start having sex.

Under the federal budget signed by President Obama, such programs would no longer have funds targeted for them.

"We're optimistic," said Valerie Huber of the National Abstinence Education Association, which is lobbying to maintain funding for the programs. "Nothing is certain, but we're hopeful."

Bush/Cheney spent about $150 million a year on abstinence programs that failed miserably. Obama's budget directs funds to "teenage pregnancy prevention" for programs that have been "proven effective through rigorous evaluation." The right objected, arguing that limiting funding to effective programs would exclude their preferred initiatives. Obama didn't budge.

But abstinence proponents believe health care reform might offer new opportunities, in large part because Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) pushed a measure to provide $50 million to states to use for abstinence programs. It was approved in committee thanks to the support of a couple of conservative Democrats, and for some reason, the provision ended up as part of the legislation passed by the Senate. (Hatch described himself as being "as surprised as anyone" to see the provision remain in the bill.)

Reality has been stubborn on the question of abstinence effectiveness, and policymakers shaping the final health care bill would be wise to acknowledge it. The nonpartisan National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that abstinence programs do not affect teenager sexual behavior. A congressionally-mandated study, which was not only comprehensive but also included long-term follow-up, found the exact same thing. Researchers keep conducting studies, and the results are always the same.

This isn't complicated. Simply telling teenagers not to have sex doesn't affect behavior, doesn't prevent unwanted pregnancies, and doesn't stop the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases. Teens who receive comprehensive lessons of sexual health, with reliable, accurate information, are more likely to engage in safer, more responsible behavior. ...

Sandy Rosenthal: Recent Ruling Shows True Tragedy of Katrina was Federal Government's Creation of the Disaster Itself

Sandy Rosenthal: Recent Ruling Shows True Tragedy of Katrina was Federal Government's Creation of the Disaster Itself

Few paid attention two years ago when U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval found the US Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Government squarely responsible for the flooding destruction in New Orleans during Katrina.

Even though the judge thundered over how the Corps squandered millions on building a levee system "... known to be inadequate by the Corps' own calculations..," few people paid much attention.



Because the judge had to dismiss the case.


Though judged responsible for the failure of its flood control structures, the Corps, nonetheless, was protected from any financial liability due to the Flood Control Act of 1928.

The American people, conditioned to believe that if there is no financial liability then the case has no merit, went on with their lives.


Even though over 600 died directly due to the floodwall collapses, and billions upon billions of dollars damage were documented, most Americans ignored the ruling and its significance.


But on November 18, 2009, Judge Duval ruled again, this time finding the Corps directly and financially responsible for the destruction of most of New Orleans and wrote, "...the Corps' lassitude and failure to fulfill its duties resulted in a catastrophic loss of human life and property in unprecedented proportions...."

This time the issue was the failure of a navigation structure, not a flood control structure. 

And now, the American people are sitting up and taking note.

The media is reporting and focusing on how the ruling would "open the floodgates" to more than 100,000 claims pending against the Army for its defective engineering and poor planning.

Americans are now paying attention, and so it's important that they receive accurate information before they become distracted again.

The last time the nation's people were listening they were handed a great deal of disinformation.

When the Corps-built levees broke on August 29, 2005, retired spokespersons for the Corps quickly fanned out to talk to national reporters about why New Orleans flooded so horrifically.

Using a technique documented by Georgianne Nienaber, these spokespersons gave out crafted misinformation with help from the Corps' public relations companies designed to shift responsibility for the flooding away from the federal agency. The myths and misinformation was then pedaled by an often understaffed news media satisfying an American public thirsting for details.





By the time the media attention abated, household opinion was that the people of south Louisiana were reckless for living in their own homes and stupid for rebuilding, even though many lived in family homes that have been in place for generations, even centuries.



The single most common diffusion technique the Corps used to shift responsibility for its broken levees away from itself was in claiming that New Orleans locals blocked the Corps' grand plans for perimeter barrier structures that would have kept water out of the city. This implied that the locals were to blame for the catastrophic flooding during Katrina four years ago. ...

.....

Here is what really happened according to the Decision-Making Chronology for the Lake Pontchartrain & Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project by Douglas Woolley and Leonard Shabman, both water resources planning and policy experts.

...

Conclusion:
The issue with changing of the law was a matter of cost share. Furthermore, this 70-30 cost share is the same in all fifty states for USACE built water protects, and is not unique to New Orleans. For the Corps to blame the locals for the Lakeview flooding because they successfully changed the cost share arrangement is disingenuous.

......

And there is no evidence of the Corps being coerced to do anything outside its will.

The literature and internet are filled with verbal statements from Corps of Engineers spokespersons during the years 2005 and 2006 saying that they were "forced" to abandon their grand plans for peripheral barrier structures for both the outfall canals and the barrier structures. But none of this literature contains references to the necessary documentation or other evidence. And all of it is refuted in 2007 and later.



....

And hopefully, it will lead to a re-examinination of an archaic law, the Flood Control Act of 1928, that provides no incentive to the Army Corps of Engineers to build flood protection properly nor mete out professional consequences should it fail.

Former head of CDC lands lucrative job as president of Merck vaccine division (opinion)

Former head of CDC lands lucrative job as president of Merck vaccine division (opinion)

You've heard it before, how the pharmaceutical industry has a giant "revolving door" through which corporations and government agencies frequently exchange key employees. That reality was driven home in a huge way today when news broke that Dr. Julie Gerberding, who headed the CDC from 2002 through 2009, landed a top job with Merck, one of the largest drug companies in the world. Her job there? She's the new president of the vaccine division.

How convenient. That means the former head of the CDC was very likely cultivating a relationship with Merck all these years, and now comes the big payoff: Heading up a $5 billion division that sells cervical cancer vaccines (like Gardasil), chickenpox vaccines and of course H1N1 swine flu vaccines, too.

So what's the problem with all this? The problem is that private industry and government health offices such as the CDC or FDA should never be so cozy. When they are, it creates an environment of collusion between Big Government and Big Pharma. We've already seen this with the government-led push for swine flu vaccines that are manufactured (and sold) by drug companies like Merck.

You might even say that the CDC already functions as the marketing division of the pharmaceutical industry. It was the CDC that pushed so hard for swine flu vaccines, even amid the obvious realization that swine flu was no more dangerous than seasonal flu. To this day, the CDC still hasn't bothered to recommend vitamin D for the prevention of either seasonal flu or swine flu. It remains heavily invested in the lucrative vaccine approach -- an approach that just happens to financially benefit the very corporations that are hiring ex-CDC employees like Dr. Gerberding.

How to triple your salary ...

Getting a job offer from Big Pharma, by the way, is one of the most-desired career paths for many CDC employees (and FDA workers, for that matter). It's easy to accomplish it, too: Just operate in your government position as if you were a Big Pharma lackey. If you produce enough good business for the drug industry, sooner or later they'll offer you a lucrative position that doubles or triples your government salary (or even better).

Now, I don't want to lump all CDC employees in this same pathetic group, because there are indeed a great many bright, honest scientists working at the CDC who do excellent work tracking pandemics and trying to save lives. They are overshadowed, however, by those ambitious profit seekers who see their CDC job as merely a stepping stone for a far better-paying job at a major drug companies. And by any measure, Dr. Gerberding just cashed in big. ...

Feds investigating Stanford ties to lawmakers: report | Reuters

Feds investigating Stanford ties to lawmakers: report | Reuters

MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. federal authorities are investigating millions of dollars contributed by accused fraudster Allen Stanford and his staff to U.S. lawmakers over the past decade, the Miami Herald reported on Sunday.

U.S.

The newspaper said the Justice Department investigation aimed to determine whether the banker received special favors from politicians while he was operating his alleged $7 billion Ponzi scheme centered on fraudulent certificates of deposit issued by his offshore bank in Antigua and Barbuda.

The Miami Herald said an email sent to Stanford by Texas Republican Representative Pete Sessions on the day authorities announced fraud charges against the billionaire financier, as well as $2.3 million in contributions he made to Sessions and other U.S. lawmakers, were "part of the government's inquiry."

It said Stanford, who has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a trial set for January 2011, also spent $5 million on lobbying since 2001, and successfully lobbied in 2001 to kill a bill that would have exposed the flow of millions into his secretive offshore bank on the Caribbean island of Antigua.

The following year he helped block legislation that would have led to more government scrutiny of his now disgraced Antigua bank, the newspaper said. ...

...

It said Stanford also funded Caribbean trips for a group of U.S. lawmakers known as the Caribbean Caucus, including Sessions and Democrats Gregory Meeks of New York and Donald Payne of New Jersey.

The newspaper said most of the members of Congress contacted it contacted about their ties to Stanford declined to discuss them, other than to say they had returned the contributions.

Prosecutors say Stanford paid tens of thousands of dollars in bribes for years to a top financial regulator in Antigua and Barbuda to shield his Ponzi scheme from U.S. investigators. ...

A Whistle-Blower at Deutsche Bank Building Is Now an Outcast - NYTimes.com

A Whistle-Blower at Deutsche Bank Building Is Now an Outcast - NYTimes.com

Marshal Greenberg is an odd, unlikely whistle-blower.The son of an accused organized crime associate, he earned more than $100,000 a year operating the elevator that ferried workers and supplies up and down the exterior of the former Deutsche Bank building during its troubled demolition.

He was hefty and heavily tattooed, a middle-aged man with a cushy job, a powerful father and a host of compelling reasons to keep his head down and his mouth shut.

Instead Mr. Greenberg embraced his job with a Barney Fife kind of zeal. He photographed unsafe conditions at the Manhattan building. He reported dangerous practices to supervisors and safety inspectors.

Smoking near compressors. Shot glasses left behind at a work station. Drug use. Stealing.

“Everybody has a right to work in a safe environment,” Mr. Greenberg said. “I was careful. That’s my job.”

For his efforts, Mr. Greenberg says, union co-workers and construction supervisors threatened and abused him, ridiculed his size, his skin condition and his chatty way with government regulators.

And after a fire at the building in 2007 killed two firefighters, someone even fingered him as an arsonist. For days, investigators treated him like the prime suspect.

Actually, the blaze was caused by careless smoking, like the kind Mr. Greenberg had reported, investigators concluded, and the firefighters’ deaths were blamed on unsafe conditions, like a standpipe that was dismantled. Two construction supervisors have been accused of criminal negligence in the deaths.

But Mr. Greenberg says he does not feel vindicated, only shunned.

Long a member of the Operating Engineers Local 14, who is credited with saving a woman on the day of the fire, Mr. Greenberg says he is now an outcast: unwelcome at his old job, unable to find work at any other.

“I’m treated like public enemy No. 1, all because I did the right thing,” Mr. Greenberg, 39, said.

He is suing the contractors who employed him, Bovis Lend Lease and the John Galt Corporation, accusing them of retaliating against him for telling the truth. Bovis, in court papers, has denied his claims. Galt has yet to file its court papers, and declined comment. ...

Baucus Nominated Melodee Hanes, His Girlfriend, For U.S. Attorney

Baucus Nominated Melodee Hanes, His Girlfriend, For U.S. Attorney

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was romantically involved with a former staffer when he recommended her earlier this year to become the next U.S. attorney for Montana, a spokesman said.

The Montana Democrat and his former state office director Melodee Hanes began their relationship in the summer of 2008 after Baucus separated from his wife, Ty Matsdorf told The Associated Press late Friday.

Baucus nominated Hanes for the U.S. attorney post in March. But she later withdrew, saying she had been presented with other opportunities she couldn't pass up.

,,,

Most recently Baucus has been at the center of an effort to move sweeping health care legislation through the Senate with a bill aimed at meeting Obama's goal of overhauling the nation's health care system to cover 30 million more Americans over the next decade.

On Friday, Baucus went against his party and backed a Republican effort to eliminate a long-term care insurance program to help seniors and the disabled. Republicans argued that the new plan would be a drain on the federal budget.

The Democrat has also been in the middle of other congressional battles: He played a key role in 2003 legislation adding a prescription-drug benefit to the Medicare program and enactment of President George W. Bush's tax cuts in 2001.