The U.S. establishment media in a nutshell

Glenn Greenwald for Salon.com:

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

“Yoo and torture” – 102

“Mukasey and 9/11″ — 73

“Yoo and Fourth Amendment” — 16

“Obama and bowling” — 1,043

“Obama and Wright” — More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)

“Obama and patriotism” – 1,607

“Clinton and Lewinsky” — 1,079

And as Eric Boehlert documents, even Iraq — that little five-year U.S. occupation with no end in sight — has been virtually written out of the media narrative in favor of mindless, stupid, vapid chatter of the type referenced above. “The Clintons are Rich!!!!” will undoubtedly soon be at the top of this heap within a matter of a day or two.

“Media critic” Howie Kurtz in the Washington Post today devoted pages of his column to Obama’s bowling and eating habits and how that shows he’s not a regular guy but an Arrogant Elitist, compiling an endless string of similar chatter about this from Karl Rove, Maureen Dowd, Walter Shapiro and Ann Althouse. Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson devoted her whole column this week to arguing that, along with Wright, Obama’s bowling was his biggest mistake, a “real doozy.”

Obama’s bowling has provided almost a full week of programming on MSNBC. Gail Collins, in The New York Times, today observed that Obama went bowling “with disastrous consequences.” And, as always, they take their personality-based fixations from the Right, who have been promoting the Obama is an Arrogant, Exotic, Elitist Freak narrative for some time. In a typically cliched and slimy article, Time’s Joe Klein this week explored what the headline called Obama’s “Patriotism Problem,” where we learn that “this is a chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what’s wrong with America than what’s right.” He trotted it all out — the bowling, the lapel pin, Obama’s angry, America-hating wife, “his Islamic-sounding name.”

Needless to say, these serious and accomplished political journalists are only focusing on these stupid and trivial matters because this is what the Regular Folk care about. They speak for the Regular People, and what the Regular People care about is not Iraq or the looming recession or health care or lobbyist control of our government or anything that would strain the brain of these reporters. What those nice little Regular Folk care about is whether Obama is Regular Folk just like them, whether he can bowl and wants to gorge himself with junk food.

Our nation’s coddled, insulated journalist class reaches these conclusions about what Regular Folk think using the most self-referential, self-absorbed thought process imaginable. The proof that the Regular People are interested in these things is that . . . the journalists themselves chatter about it endlessly. In Great American Hypocrites, I described the process as follows in the context of examining the three-week-long media obsession with John Edwards’ haircut (to the exclusion of a whole array of revelations about what the government was doing or planning to do) and how they justified that coverage:

Most certainly, the press will pretend to be above it all (“this is not something that we, the sophisticated political journalists, care about, of course”). But they yammer about Drudge-promoted gossip endlessly, and then insist that their own chattering is proof that it is an important story that people care about. And because they conclude that “people” (i.e., them) are concerned with the story, they keep chirping about it, which in turn fuels their belief that the story is important. It is an endless loop of self-referential narcissism — whatever they endlessly sputter is what “the people” care about, and therefore they must keep harping on it, because their chatter is proof of its importance.

They don’t need Drudge to rule their world any longer because they are Matt Drudge now.

Every day, it becomes more difficult to blame George Bush, Dick Cheney and comrades for their seven years (and counting) of crimes, corruption and destruction of our political values. Think about it this way: if you were a high government official and watched as — all in a couple of weeks time — it is revealed, right out in the open, that you suspended the Fourth Amendment, authorized torture, proclaimed yourself empowered to break the law, and sent the nation’s top law enforcement officer to lie blatantly about how and why the 9/11 attacks happened so that you could acquire still more unchecked spying power and get rid of lawsuits that would expose what you did, and the political press in this country basically ignored all of that and blathered on about Obama’s bowling score and how he eats chocolate, wouldn’t you also conclude that you could do anything you want, without limits, and know there will be no consequences? What would be the incentive to stop doing all of that?

UPDATE: One other point to note about all of this is that these fixations are as skewed as they are vapid. Barack Obama is an exotic elitist freak because he went to Harvard Law School and made $1 million from his book. Hillary Clinton can’t possibly have any connection to the Regular Folk because her husband, who grew up dirt poor, became quite wealthy after being President. John Kerry was completely removed from the concerns of the Regular People because his second wife was rich.

By contrast, George W. Bush was a down-home, salt-of-the-earth Man of the People despite being the grandson of a U.S. Senator, the son of a President (who greatly magnified his riches in his post-presidency), and the by-product of an extremely wealthy, coddled life. Ronald Reagan was pure Americana despite spending most of his adult life as a very wealthy Hollywood actor (and converting his post-presidency into far greater riches still). And John McCain is as Regular a Guy as it gets, even though he dumped his first wife (the mother of his three children) after she was disfigured and disabled by a near-fatal car accident so that he could marry his much younger, much prettier, and extremely wealthy heiress-mistress, whose family riches then launched his political career and sustained a life of luxury for almost three decades (that’s how McCain’s rustic “Sedona cabin” — i.e., his sprawling compound — came to be).

It would be bad enough if our political press were obsessed with such trivialities. The fact that they do so in such a Republican-leader-worshiping manner makes it only that much worse, particularly given that it’s this dynamic, more than anything else, that determines the outcome of our elections.

25 Shocking Facts About the Pharmaceutical Industry

Source: Laura Milligan, Nursing Online Education Database.

Researching and snagging an adequate, wallet-friendly health care plan is tough these days, despite its high-profile presence in political debates. A large part of the controversy over expensive health costs stems from criticism of high-priced medications marketed by powerful pharmaceutical companies. From Medicare fraud to CEOs worth billions of dollars, big drug companies are accused of putting profits above patients, spinning false PR campaigns and more. We’ve uncovered 25 of the most shocking facts about the pharmaceutical industry in this list.

1. The price of drugs is increasing faster than anything else a patient pays for: Marcia Angell writes in her book The Truth About Drug Companies that “drugs are the fastest-growing part of the health care bill which itself is rising at an alarming rate.” Dr. Angell argues that patients are spending more on drugs simply because they are being prescribed more drugs than ever before and that “those drugs are more likely to be expensive new ones instead of older, cheaper ones, and that the prices of the most heavily prescribed drugs are routinely jacked up, sometimes several times a year.”

2. Your doctor may have an ulterior motive behind your prescription: In 2007, the St. Petersburg Times reported that drug reps often give gifts to convince doctors to prescribe the medications that they represent. Dr. James P. Orlowski tries to teach his students that interaction with drug reps is not in the best interests of patients. Even though many doctors may believe solicitation from drug reps is unethical or at the very least impractical, gifts like free meals, pens, posters, books, and free samples are offered to physicians in an effort to influence their prescription practices.

3. Pharmaceutical companies spend more on marketing than research: According to ScienceDaily, a “new study by two York University researchers estimates the U.S. pharmaceutical industry spends almost twice as much on promotion as it does on research and development.” Despite pharmaceutical companies’ claims that Americans pay such high prices for prescription medications because they’re really paying for research and development costs, the industry spent $33.5 billion on promotion costs in 2004. The study also “supports the position that the U.S. pharmaceutical industry is marketing-driven and challenges the perception of a research-driven, life-saving, pharmaceutical industry” that values the lives of its patients, rather than their spending habits.

4. Brand name meds often have a 1,000% mark-up price: Many Americans are aware that brand name prescriptions cost more than generic meds, and that part of the reason for the higher prices is because they’ve been hiked up by the pharmaceutical companies themselves and aren’t necessarily a direct result of expensive new ingredients. This study, however, reveals that some meds can have a mark-up of 1,000%. For example, according to the study, consumers pay approximately $215 for 100 tablets of the allergy medicine Claritin, while the cost of the generic active ingredient in Claritin only costs 71 cents.

5. Popular meds are referred to as “blockbuster” drugs: The new presence of blockbuster drugs is a testament to how the pharmaceutical company’s marketing tactics and price hikes are getting out of control. According to TheAtlantic.com, “the industry usually considers a drug to be a blockbuster if it reaches a billion dollars a year in sales.” The drug Prilosec, for example, was marketed as a miracle pill that allowed people to “eat the burritos and curries that their gastrointestinal systems had placed off-limits.” Prilosec is the first drug to make the industry $5 billion in one year, and the next year, in 2000, Prilosec reached $6 billion. Consumers called it “purple Jesus,” making it easy for the drug company to capitalize on patients addict-like behavior.

6. Vioxx advertising reaches new heights: To give consumers more perspective on how prescription drug advertising has reached new heights, the AARP Bulletin reports that pharmaceutical giant “Merck spent more advertising Vioxx, according to NIHCM, than the $125 million spent promoting Pepsi or the $146 million spent on Budweiser beer ads. It even came close to the $169 million spent promoting GM’s Saturn, the nation’s most advertised car.” While “drug prices are rising at more than twice the rate of inflation,” industry analysts and insiders debate over whether or not rising prices is the fault of the pharmaceutical company or the consumers.

7. Drug reps often have no medical or science education: Is it safe for doctors to assume that the professionals they meet with to discuss new medications and prescription recommendations for their patients actually have backgrounds in medicine or science? According to ABC News, it’s not. A former drug rep for the pharmaceutical company Eli Lily, Shahram Ahari testified before Congress, saying that “pharmaceutical companies hire former cheerleaders and ex-models to wine and dine doctors, exaggerate the drug’s benefits and underplay their side-effects.” He also explained that he was taught “how to exceed spending limits for important clients…[by] using friendships and personal gifts” and to “exploit sexual tension.”

8. Pharmaceutical companies are helping, hurting the AIDS epidemics: Pharmaceutical companies have been feeling the pressure from the UN as well as governments and activists from underdeveloped countries to supply tests and medicine for AIDS patients at reduced prices. According to the Center for International Development at Harvard University, the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. agreed to slash prices on its two AIDS drugs in Brazil” in 2001, but supposedly “in part to stop that country from importing a generic version.” Unpatented AIDS drugs are circulating in countries like South Africa, which makes pharmaceutical companies nervous because “patents are the basis for high drug prices,” and the presence of generic drugs “weakens the drug companies’ efforts to maintain a worldwide environment that respects intellectual property.” The debate surrounding intellectual property and the private sector vs. patient rights and affordable health care is magnified on a much larger, more global scale in this situation.

9. Doctors can choose to reveal or keep private their prescription records: Drug reps often research doctors’ prescription records before meeting with them and attempting to convince them to recommend certain drugs. By understanding a physician’s history with a given drug, the drug rep is more likely to influence doctors and sell more medicines. The New York Times reports, however, that not all doctors are falling prey to these background checks. In 2006, the American Medical Association decided to give doctors a choice to keep their “records off limits to drug sales representatives” and make prescription recommendations based on unbiased judgment.

10. Good PR trumps patient care: When Merck & Co. found out that one of their products, Vioxx, can increase the risk of heart attacks in its patients, it allegedly “played down” the evidence. Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol accused Merck of “scientific misconduct,” and two days later, Dr. Topol was kicked off the board of governors at the Cleveland Clinic.

11. Toxins found in drugs exported from China: A top story in the spring of 2007 centered around Zheng Xiaoyu, a Chinese drug czar who was sentenced to death “after admitting that he took bribes while running the country’s Food & Drug Administration between 1998 and 2005,” when he served as commissioner. According to The New York Times, “every year, thousands of people [in China] are sickened or killed because of rampant counterfeiting and tainted food and drugs.”

12. Abbott Laboratories charged Medi-Cal nearly $10 for saline solution: This list has already mentioned some of the extreme mark-ups for prescription medications, but Abbott Laboratories’ fraudulent behavior towards California’s state Medicaid program actually ended up in court. The state attorney general “sued 39 drug companies…accusing them of bilking the state of hundreds of millions of dollars by overcharging for medicines,” reports The New York Times. An example of the outrageous mark-ups include the $9.73 price tag for saline solution, which cost other health care providers 95 cents.

13. Guilty of Medicare fraud: Pharmaceutical companies are also being tried in federal courts as an answer to their exploitation of Medicare. AstraZeneca Inc. had to pay $280 million in civil penalties and $63 million in criminal penalties to the federal government after the company “paid kickbacks to doctors and coached them to cheat Medicare to promote a prostate cancer drug.”

14. Some generic brands are becoming more popular: Those wanting to really “stick it” to the big man and who hope to see pharmaceutical companies stumble as the result of more competition and fewer consumers will enjoy this 2007 report from The New York Times, which finds that “annual inflation in drug costs is at the lowest rate in the three decades since the Labor Department began using its current method of tracking prescription prices.” Patients are starting to use generic medications and buy prescriptions from discount stores like Wal-Mart to alleviate the financial burden of brand name drugs.

15. Combined wealth of top 5 pharmaceutical companies outweighs GNP of sub-Saharan Africa.: Corporate Watch shows the public just how much wealth big pharmaceutical companies have, even on a global scale. Their report references The Guardian, which found that “the combined worth of the world’s top five drug companies is twice the combined GNP of all sub-Saharan Africa and their influence on the rules of world trade is many times stronger because they can bring their wealth to bear directly on the levers of western power.”

16. Dr. Robert Jarvik isn’t a licensed doctor: Many Americans watched as Dr. Robert Jarvik, inventor of the artificial heart, gently coaxed them to take the Pfizer-marketed drug Lipitor in order to lower their cholesterol. The ads were eventually pulled, however, when “it turn[ed] out Jarvik isn’t a licensed heart doctor.” U.S. Representative John Dingell remarked, “It seems that Pfizer’s No. 1 priority is to sell lots of Lipitor, by whatever means necessary, including misleading the American people.”

17. Ernesto Bertarelli makes Forbes’ billionaires list: Just as Americans are questioning the record profits and salaries of booming oil companies when they’re forced to accept rising prices at the pump, people may wonder about Ernesto Bertarelli’s billionaire status. Bertarelli is the CEO of the pharmaceutical company Serono, and Forbes reports that his net worth in 2002 reached $8.4 billion. That was enough to place him as the 31st richest person in the world.

18. Pfizer is fifth-best wealth creator: Corporate Watch reports that Fortune named pharmaceutical giant Pfizer as the “fifth-best wealth-creator” in America, and Corporate Watch considers it the “largest and richest pharmaceutical enterprise in the world.”

19. Americans pay more for prescription meds than anyone else in the world: The Media Matters website analyzes a 60 Minutes interview between correspondent Bob Simon and then Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona. During the segment, Carmona maintains that Americans pay more for brand name prescriptions than anyone else in the world because of the hefty price associated with “the research and development of drugs.” See point number 3 on this list, which points out that drug companies pay more on advertising and marketing than they do on research and development.

20. Pharmaceutical advertisements actually work: The public wag their fingers at pharmaceutical companies’ advertising budgets only if they admit that sometimes, those commercials actually work. The Miami Herald points out that while “more than four in ten [Americans] have an unfavorable view” of pharmaceutical companies, “prescription-drug advertising has driven a third of Americans to talk to their doctors about specific drugs, and many of these people got a prescription from their doctor as a result.”

21. Americans spent $200 billion on prescription drugs in 2002: Marcia Angell reveals in her book The Truth About the Drug Companies that Americans spent $200 billion on prescription drugs in 2002. That’s the amount experts estimated it will cost to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the amount China is pouring into an energy renewal program.

22. Academics help pharmaceutical companies conduct research: A new trend in the R&D sector of the pharmaceutical industry features research-based partnerships between academic centers and drug companies. Marcia Angell explains the collaboration by writing that these companies “now ring the major academic research institutions and often carry out the initial phases of drug development, hoping for lucrative deals with big drug companies that can market the new drugs. Usually both academic researchers and their institutions own equity in the biotechnology companies they are involved with,” and everyone can “cash in on the public investment in research.” As academic centers play a more significant role in the success of the drug companies, they are more likely to take on the “entrepreneur” spirit and make profits from patents, royalties and stocks, which can mark up the prices for everyday consumers.

23. “New” Drugs aren’t really new: When a new drug hits the market, is it really new? Euractiv.com reports on a recent study which found “that two-thirds of the prescription drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration between 1989 and 2000 were identical to existing drugs or modified versions of them. Only about one-third of the drugs approved by the FDA during the time period were based on new “molecular entities” that treat diseases in novel ways.” Many of these newer drugs cost more because the drug companies have to extend their patents, which can “enable a brand company to delay generic competitors and maintain a high price for an aging product.”

24. Some drug companies are taking advantage of underdeveloped countries to perform clinical trials: Wired.com reports that India is becoming a more attractive place for drug companies to run clinical trials and test out new drugs. The article explains, “more and more drug companies are conducting clinical trials in developing countries where government oversight is more lax and research can be done for a fraction of the cost.” Controversy is starting to build over the trend, however, as one expert explains. Sean Philpott, managing editor of The American Journal of Bioethics, reveals to Wired.com that such practices may be unfair, as “individuals who participate in Indian clinical trials usually won’t be educated. Offering $100 [as payment for their participation] may be undue enticement; they may not even realize that they are being coerced.”

25. Pharmaceutical Companies donated millions to Hurricane Katrina relief programs: Americans are used to bashing pharmaceutical companies, just as they criticize health insurance companies, rising gas prices and monopolies. It may come as a shock, then, to discover the philanthropic efforts undertaken by big drug companies. Medical News Today writes that companies like Abbott, Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer and others have donated millions of dollars in cash and supplies to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

War without end: Gen. Petraeus insists U.S. needs to stay in Iraq indefinitely

From New York Daily News. Comments via Signs of the Times:

©Richards/Getty
Members of Code Pink protest as Gen. David Petraeus
testifies in Washington on Tuesday

Gen. David Petraeus said Tuesday that at least 140,000 U.S. troops should remain indefinitely in Iraq – and also appeared to move the goalposts for defining the success of their mission.

Despite genuine gains, “We haven’t turned any corners, we haven’t seen any lights at the end of the tunnel. The champagne bottle has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator. And the progress, while real, is fragile and is reversible,” he cautioned the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The U.S. troop surge “significantly reduced” what had been the main threat from Al Qaeda in Iraq, Petraeus said. But the effort to stabilize the country was in peril from so-called “Special Groups” of terrorists trained and funded by Iran who were behind the recent violence in Basra and Baghdad, he added. “Unchecked, the Special Groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq,” Petraeus said in marathon testimony before two Senate committees.

Comment: The success of the ’surge’ has been in U.S. dollars paying militias to ‘awaken’. Suddenly and miraculously there’s no more ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’. To support the claim, attacks are now being spun and attributed to “criminals”:

“The US military says it is chasing “criminals” firing rockets into Baghdad and the heavily fortified Green Zone where the Iraqi government and US embassy are sited.” AFP – 9 April 2008.

Falling foul of its own propaganda, the U.S. military cannot claim success against Al Qaeda while attacks continue, so “criminals” it is.

He said the new main threat from Iran influenced him in deciding to stop troop withdrawals at the end of July when the remaining surge troops come home to leave U.S. force levels at about 140,000.

Comment: Another propaganda fabrication. Just as easily as the U.S. can create the mythical ‘Al Qaeda in Iraq’ to meet its aims, so appears the new “Special Groups of terrorists trained and funded by Iran” (minus any facts to support the claim). Standby for a catchy new title to help support the spin, might we suggest “Special Iranian forces in Iraq”?

Additional withdrawals would stop completely for at least 45 days, Petraeus said, and would be followed by a “process of assessment” to determine when pullouts could be renewed.

Despite repeated attempts by senators of both parties to gauge how long his assessment might last, Petraeus refused to be pinned down.

“Could that be a month, could that be two months, could that be four months?” asked Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

It could be less, but, “It could be more than that,” Petraeus said. “Again, it’s when the conditions are met that we can make a recommendation for further reductions.”

Petraeus later said withdrawals would be “conditions-based” and “it is just flat not responsible to try to put down a stake in the ground and say this is when it would be or that is when it would be.”

Petraeus’ statements virtually guaranteed that the next President will inherit a significant U.S. troop presence in Iraq and also ensured the war will remain a major issue in the November election.

©Monsivais/AP

Comment: Job well done

President Bush will back up Petraeus in meetings today with congressional leaders, who have acknowledged they lack the votes to change his policy.

Bush also was to make a daytime Iraq address tomorrow, announcing that U.S. troop tours in Iraq and Afghanistan will be reduced from 15 to 12 months.

Democrats on the committees generally pressed Petraeus without success for a withdrawal timetable, while Republicans deferred to the four-star officer.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was an exception. In tones of resignation, Collins said that “success always seems to be around the corner” in Iraq.

Secret US plan for military future in Iraq

From The Guardian:

A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country.

The draft strategic framework agreement between the US and Iraqi governments, dated March 7 and marked “secret” and “sensitive”, is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorises the US to “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security” without time limit.

The authorisation is described as “temporary” and the agreement says the US “does not desire permanent bases or a permanent military presence in Iraq”. But the absence of a time limit or restrictions on the US and other coalition forces – including the British – in the country means it is likely to be strongly opposed in Iraq and the US.

Iraqi critics point out that the agreement contains no limits on numbers of US forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term US security agreements with other countries. The agreement is intended to govern the status of the US military and other members of the multinational force.

Following recent clashes between Iraqi troops and Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army in Basra, and threats by the Iraqi government to ban his supporters from regional elections in the autumn, anti-occupation Sadrists and Sunni parties are expected to mount strong opposition in parliament to the agreement, which the US wants to see finalised by the end of July. The UN mandate expires at the end of the year.

One well-placed Iraqi Sunni political source said yesterday: “The feeling in Baghdad is that this agreement is going to be rejected in its current form, particularly after the events of the last couple of weeks. The government is more or less happy with it as it is, but parliament is a different matter.”

It is also likely to prove controversial in Washington, where it has been criticised by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has accused the administration of seeking to tie the hands of the next president by committing to Iraq’s protection by US forces.

The defence secretary, Robert Gates, argued in February that the planned agreement would be similar to dozens of “status of forces” pacts the US has around the world and would not commit it to defend Iraq. But Democratic Congress members, including Senator Edward Kennedy, a senior member of the armed services committee, have said it goes well beyond other such agreements and amounts to a treaty, which has to be ratified by the Senate under the constitution.

Administration officials have conceded that if the agreement were to include security guarantees to Iraq, it would have to go before Congress. But the leaked draft only states that it is “in the mutual interest of the United States and Iraq that Iraq maintain its sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence and that external threats to Iraq be deterred. Accordingly, the US and Iraq are to consult immediately whenever the territorial integrity or political independence of Iraq is threatened.”

Significantly – given the tension between the US and Iran, and the latter’s close relations with the Iraqi administration’s Shia parties – the draft agreement specifies that the “US does not seek to use Iraq territory as a platform for offensive operations against other states”.

General David Petraeus, US commander in Iraq, is to face questioning from all three presidential candidates on Capitol Hill today when he reports to the Senate on his surge strategy, which increased US forces in Iraq by about 30,000 last year.

Both Clinton and Democratic rival Barack Obama are committed to beginning troop withdrawals from Iraq. Republican senator John McCain has pledged to maintain troop levels until the country is secure.

More Army recruits require ‘conduct’ waivers

From USA Today:

The percentage of recruits requiring a waiver to join the Army because of a criminal record or other past misconduct has more than doubled since 2004 to one for every eight new soldiers.

The increase reflects the difficulties the Army faces in attracting young men and women into the military at a time of war. “Each month is a struggle, for the Army in particular,” said Bill Carr, a top military personnel official.

The percentage of active and Reserve Army recruits granted “conduct” waivers for misdemeanor or felony charges increased to 11% last fiscal year from 4.6% in fiscal 2004, according to Army Recruiting Command statistics. So far this fiscal year, which began last October, 13% of recruits have entered the Army with conduct waivers.

Most waivers involve misdemeanors. The Army has granted 4,676 conduct waivers among the 36,047 recruited from October through late February. The waivers have helped the Army meet its active and Reserve recruitment goals of about 100,000 people a year for the past several years.

A recruit needs a waiver if he or she has one felony or serious misdemeanor or more than three minor misdemeanors. For example, a single charge of possessing marijuana or driving under the influence requires a waiver. Minor infractions include disorderly conduct, trespassing or vandalism.

No exceptions can be made for a number of serious offenses, including sexual crimes or offenses related to drug or alcohol addiction.

Carr and others say the military has granted waivers without hurting the quality of recruits. Exceptions are granted after examining recommendations from teachers, coaches and others. “We don’t look at them unless their community stands behind them,” Carr said.

In another shift in the backgrounds of new Army personnel, the percentage of high school graduates among Army recruits was 79% last year, compared with 91% in 2001.

Recruits who have come in with waivers generally perform better than peers who haven’t needed special permission to join the Army, Carr said.

“When you have people volunteering that have made some mistakes in their life, you give them fair consideration,” said Frank Shaffery, deputy director of the Army’s Recruiting Command.

The Air Force and Navy, smaller forces which have fewer troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, generally haven’t faced the same recruiting pressures. Waivers for the Marine Corps have remained relatively flat for the past four years, according to Pentagon data.

UFO Guy gives an interview

YouTube video by way of Signs of the Times:

This is a great example of how you are turned away from looking at things you aren’t supposed to look at. It’s also fairly funny. Watch this and be reassured that there is nothing going on except what you are told by the PTB is going on. That’s what you are supposed to believe. After all, you wouldn’t want to be counted amongst nut cases like this, would you? A disinformation classic.

The Emerging Surveillance State

From Antiwar.com:

by Rep. Ron Paul

Last month, the House amended the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand the government’s ability to monitor our private communications. This measure, if it becomes law, will result in more warrantless government surveillance of innocent American citizens.

Though some opponents claimed that the only controversial part of this legislation was its grant of immunity to telecommunications companies, there is much more to be wary of in the bill. In the House version, Title II, Section 801 extends immunity from prosecution of civil legal action to people and companies including any provider of an electronic communication service, any provider of a remote computing service, “any other communication service provider who has access to wire or electronic communications,” any “parent, subsidiary, affiliate, successor, or assignee” of such company, any “officer, employee, or agent” of any such company, and any “landlord, custodian, or other person who may be authorized or required to furnish assistance.” The Senate version goes even further by granting retroactive immunity to such entities that may have broken the law in the past.

The new FISA bill allows the federal government to compel many more types of companies and individuals to grant the government access to our communications without a warrant. The provisions in the legislation designed to protect Americans from warrantless surveillance are full of loopholes and ambiguities. There is no blanket prohibition against listening in on all American citizens without a warrant.

We have been told that this power to listen in on communications is legal and only targets terrorists. But if what these companies are being compelled to do is legal, why is it necessary to grant them immunity? If what they did in the past was legal and proper, why is it necessary to grant them retroactive immunity?

In communist East Germany , one in every 100 citizens was an informer for the dreaded secret police, the Stasi. They either volunteered or were compelled by their government to spy on their customers, their neighbors, their families, and their friends. When we think of the evil of totalitarianism, such networks of state spies are usually what comes to mind. Yet, with modern technology, what once took tens of thousands of informants can now be achieved by a few companies being coerced by the government to allow it to listen in to our communications. This surveillance is un-American.

We should remember that former New York governor Eliot Spitzer was brought down by a provision of the PATRIOT Act that required enhanced bank monitoring of certain types of financial transactions. Yet we were told that the PATRIOT Act was needed to catch terrorists, not philanderers. The extraordinary power the government has granted itself to look into our private lives can be used for many purposes unrelated to fighting terrorism. We can even see how expanded federal government surveillance power might be used to do away with political rivals.

The Fourth Amendment to our Constitution requires the government to have a warrant when it wishes to look into the private affairs of individuals. If we are to remain a free society, we must defend our rights against any governmental attempt to undermine or bypass the Constitution.

Why Are NPR & Progressive Media Afraid to Talk About Election Fraud & Stolen Elections?

Goodbye Terry Gross, We Never Knew Ye
On liberal media denial

By Joe Bageant:

Having come to understand that mainstream media are in the business of selling fried chicken and cars, giving Wall Street head, and stealing bandwidth from the public’s airwaves, none of us expect them to question anything afoot in the empire. We quite understand they cannot be wasting profitable air time on a nation whose collective memory is 30 seconds long. So we watch them pull their punches and wait for the commercials, which are their whole point anyway. If, god forbid, you are the pointy headed type interested in details, turn on NPR. And if you consider yourself hipper than the couch taters out here in Budland, go onto the net and visit Salon. Or if you are so worldly and hip you are a downright commie, then subscribe to Mother Jones. That’s the way it used to be.

But now we are seeing what were once considered the more intelligent and in some cases more principled media such as NPR, Salon and Mother Jones distance themselves from meaningful controversy — pulling the few wimpy punches they have. (Bullshit controversy, however, is still in fashion.) We are talking about Mark Crispin Miller’s new book, Fooled Again — How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They’ll Steal the Next One, Too (Unless We Stop Them). Miller has become a known and respected progressive figure, one of the few in-your-face bespectacled lefty author types with any credibility. But when it comes to promoting Fooled Again, the guy can’t even get arrested. No interviews, nothing. In fact, these days even his cash bounces — Miller can’t even buy a spot on National Public Radio for his book. Now you may be saying to yourself: “Public Radio doesn’t sell advertising.” Which would make you one of those delusional souls who believe that shameless brand hawking by the oil companies and the financial establishment on NPR is not advertising. I mean, after all, ADM and Wal-Mart? NPR has sales people out chasing these sponsors. They sell these damned announcements. The only difference between NPR’s “paid sponsorships” and the puke jock shows’ commercial radio ads is that the NPR folks don’t have a real rate card. Which is either stupid or brilliant, I’m not sure.

Anyway, when it comes to NPR and PBS, and especially Philadelphia’s WHYY, Miller can’t buy a date. As in the past, he attempted to sponsor spots on behalf of his newest book. And WHYY accepted the sponsorship. But then aaaaaaaaagh! There came the sweaty excuse ridden attempts to back out on their end. Various excuses included that the book was too old (it was out two months) and that it was a paid political ad, (it supports no candidate.) Ultimately NPR and PBS have pretty much told Miller to go to hell.

It is safe to say that WHYY and the rest of the public media gang are simply scared to death of uttering the book’s title on the airwaves. They know that the neocons will jump up all over their asses claiming liberal bias. Maybe even launch one of their infamous letter writing campaigns. The Republican game plan of unrelenting bullshit, that steady grinding away day in day out — it works. They have managed to wear down those media they don’t already control from the top, make them either doubt themselves or make them damned afraid of repercussions. We can well imagine what the GOP assault on public radio and television has created around places like WHYY. Hell, if they can get Bill Moyers they can get anybody. Right?

WHYY would not accept Miller’s sponsorship on behalf of Fooled Again on the grounds that it was a paid political message. By golly, it was a matter of principle! That’s what it was! We won’t take just anybody’s money. Yeah, right. If you’ve ever suffered through a pledge drive you know that the brass at NPR would put Terry Gross and Nina Totenberg out on the street as workin’ girls if they thought it would bring in another couple of hundred. But honestly speaking, the facts are as WHYY claims. The station does not accept political ads. It only accepts paid advertisements for commercial products. Which is exactly what the sponsorship of Miller’s book is.

Then there is that charge of it being old news. Hell, maybe the evolving corruption of our voting system is old news in a nation with said 30-second memory. Maybe the subversion of our government by an organized syndicate is not worthy of more than a few days media attention. Maybe that’s why the book is not getting reviewed. But besides treading lightly around the neocon pit bulls, there is also that nagging issue of denial. To admit that two national elections were rigged shakes us to the bone.

Right now, between the Bush junta’s bloody cry for an inquisition or at least universal surveillance and torture, and the Christian right’s demented hallucinations of Kofi Annan as the anti-Christ (honest to god, just look in theLeft Behind books) we live in that bizarro world that often precedes fascism — that bizarro world in which every topic imaginable is politicized, and even not to speak represents taking a political stand.

Along with the passive denial of NPR, there is the active denial. We find characters like Salon’s Farhad Manjoo who’ve lit into Fooled Again with a suspicious vengeance. In a way it is to be expected. Manjoo has practically made a career of writing in liberal venues that there is no odor of polecats in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere. Sometimes I think Salon keeps that boy around so the goppers can’t cry bias. Hell, his first act was jumping Greg Palast for his groundbreaking exposure of the Republican election fraud in that first crooked election.

At any rate, here’s a guy, Miller, with all the establishment credentials that NPR just eats up when they interview Heritage Foundation “experts.” In fact, Mark Crispin Miller does a helluva job documenting his facts. Certainly as good as any of the aging Heritage Foundation gasbags NPR is so fond of for analysis. As in: Well Scott, actually this is not the first president to be caught pissing off the White House portico and throwing empty liquor bottles at the passing public … In 1832 President Andrew Jackson … But for now Mark Crispin Miller can go sit in the corner with the other non grata folks like Howard Zinn and Gore Vidal. As one radio host put it, “Miller is too angry. It doesn’t make for good radio.”

Some listeners feel that NPR “does the best it can in this best of all possible worlds. Sometimes they’re still pretty damn good.” True enough. But in these times, being “sometimes good” is not good enough — not when the goddamn republic is burning down. They too need to carry water buckets with the rest of us and quit imitating corporate media. But then, NPR and PBS are themselves big corporate media. They are big, they are a corporation and they are media. So much so that they run soppy feel good material worthy of the Rush Limbaugh or the Paul Harvey show. Material like “This I Believe” series.

Tell you what I believe. I believe two national elections were rigged in this country. Millions of others believe the same. Tens of millions in fact. But most are in denial of what they deeply suspect and do not want to see verified.

Our national denial comes easily when everything converges to support it. First we had John Kerry’s quick concession of the election, lest a fellow Skull ‘n Boner accuse him of sour grapes. And looking about, none of our neighbors or colleagues seems worried about it. We are above all a mimicking species. Then there is the traditional press, from whom we’ve heard scarcely a chirp. Rather counter-intuitively, denial is especially easy for news reporters who can always fall back on “the facts” and the need for absolute proof. Proof being that someone is criminally charged with the very election fraud everyone is afraid to acknowledge because it is the death knell for any precious notions we’ve ever entertained about our system — the one system among all the troubled and grievously offensive governments on this planet, we have been told all our lives, that “works.” Acknowledging that it no longer works would mean fixing it, and fixing it calls for more strength and political will than Americans have ever shown. In fact, to be honest, when in your lifetime did ordinary Americans ever rise up together to stamp down or even point out corruption? I dare say never.

It has always been the duty of the press or a few spectacularly brave individuals to call attention to such things. And on rare occasions the press has done just that. But this is not one of those occasions. Not for CBS, PBS or NPR. Especially not for NPR. Given that the Republicans have them by the nose hairs, it is easier, not to mention far safer, for everyone to deny that criminals operate within our political system and have established what amounts to a corporate/political underworld. We can smell it at every turn, and have seen its very reflection in those exit poll results.

Big corporate sponsors do nothing that does not yield a return on investment, nothing that doesn’t buy some desired result. Thus, denial and distraction are what those sponsorships from Hewlett Packard and Monsanto really buy. At the same time the denial is all but spotlighted with the fluff and slop that replaces real coverage and demonstrates cooperation to the administration and sponsors. Stuff like “This I Believe.” Or that overt sop, Marketplace, where happy jock stockbroker types Kai Ryssdal, and that hyperactive airhead in Texas (I forget his name) play pocket pool with each other over the day’s market numbers, happily promoting the liberal capitalist notion that the second law of thermodynamics is false and that growth and consumption can be infinite in a world of diminishing resources.

NPR’s own ombudsman admits that NPR, like the Fox and all the rest, skews towards conservative spokesmen. In fact, NPR so resembles the mainstream ditch these days that at least two of its major correspondents slipped comfortably enough right over into Fox News and were openly congratulated for it by fellow NPR broadcasters.

PBS increasingly depends on the teat of corporate underwriters. Consequently, we can expect to be force-fed even more of the three tenors, the Lawrence Welk trio of the white middle class boomer generation. Meanwhile, as NPR whines under the table for scraps from the big dogs’ plates, the Heritage Foundation spends $30 million a year priming the info pumps of Fox and the other big guys.

All of which still leaves those crooked elections lingering as the backdrop to, or perhaps harbinger of, the 2008 elections, despite the lack of reporting on it. Reporters may perhaps be bound by a duty to refrain from assumptions. But I sure as hell ain’t. And I’m assuming that if the Bush junta got away with it the first time, they will keep right on doing it until somebody breaks their goddamned legs. People like Katherine Harris, Karl Rove and Republican Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell haven’t climbed to the top of the GOP dung heap because of their morals and restraint. They are big time Republicans precisely because they are willing to steal chickens and lie to the sheriff.

At some deep national level we all know, George W. Bush has no right to be farting into the Oval Office desk chair. Even the few genuinely moderate Republicans not driven into hiding by the Brownshirts look sheepish when you bring up Florida and Ohio. Yet Americans go on pretending that everything is OK. The people pretend along with the media that George W. Bush belongs in that chair. Pretend that his is the face of a man capable of deep and serious thought, that the smirk is not really a smirk and that he really gives a rat’s ass about those coffins at Dover or those black people in New Orleans. They pretend that it was not farcical when he told the nation this week that despite the city being soaked in petro-toxins and defined mainly by bulldozed piles of rotting timbers, clothing and sewerage, overturned cars and botulism filled refrigerators, “New Orleans is still a great place to bring the family and have fun.” They pretend that strange nationwide spider web of bitter GOP operatives could not possibly have worked together in Ohio and Florida and heaven only knows where else. Everything is OK.

As Helen Caldicott recently put it: “What’s to become of us? Ask any experienced mental health practitioner what happens to a person who constructs and tries to maintain a life based on denial of fundamental reality. It can be done for a while, in spite of occasional outbursts of behavioral oddities (remember Dr. Strangelove’s disobedient arm that was always popping up in an embarrassing Nazi salute). But how long can such a pretense be maintained, even when the pretender is surrounded by the best handlers money can buy?”

Apparently, Helen, a damned long time. At least eight years.

Vaccine Information Statements For Dummies

From Inside Vaccines Blog:

Before any doctor gives your baby vaccines, you should be given Vaccination Information Sheets (VISs) to read.

Developed by the CDC, they inform vaccine recipients, their parents or legal representative, about the benefits and risks of vaccines. (1) Federal Law requires their use. This is a result of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, 42 U.S.C. 300aa-26. (1) Before 1986, parents didn’t have any right to printed information about vaccines.

VISs sound like a good system. Parents get concise and easy to understand information on a vaccine’s risks and benefits so they can make an informed decision.

Is that really how it works? Let’s examine the nuts and bolts of VISs.

VISs are only required for vaccines covered under the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) and even then only if a FINAL version of a VIS exists. (1)

The CDC’s, Vaccination Information Sheet (VIS): Myth Exposed! states, “The law does not require that a vaccine be withheld if a VIS for it does not yet exist.” “…providers should not delay use of a vaccine because of the absence of a VIS.” (2) Note the CDC makes “not” bold.

Federal law does not require informed consent for vaccines. The government feels that VISs should adequately inform parents in spite of the fact that they are not informed consent forms. (3)

The information in VISs is often at odds with package inserts. “Package inserts generally tend to include all adverse events that were temporally associated with a vaccine during clinical trials, whereas ACIP tends to recognize only those likely to be causally linked to the vaccine.” (3)

Let’s take a look at the Hepatitis B VIS to see just how at odds its adverse events section is with the package inserts’. From the VIS, the ACIP experts say the only risks are soreness and fever. Severe allergic reactions occur at one per 1.1 million doses. That seems like a pretty safe vaccine. Now read the “Adverse Events” sections in the package inserts, GlaxoSmithKline’s ENGERIX-B, starts on page 8, and Merck’s Recombivax HB, starts on page 7.

ENGERIX-B reports 40 unique adverse events from clinical studies and Recombivax HB reports 47. As stated in the adverse events sections, these studies only allow healthy individuals to participate and they cannot adequately detect rare adverse events due to the small number of participants. Once a vaccine is put into use in the real world, where the sick and vulnerable populations are not excluded from being given the vaccine, adverse events continue to be monitored. ENGERIX-B reports an additional 37 unique adverse events from postmarketing reports and Recombivax HB reports an additional 54.

In total, ENGERIX-B lists 77 unique adverse events and Recombivax HB lists 101. Now those probably aren’t all attributed to the vaccines, but do you think the experts at the ACIP got it right when then say that only 3 of those count?

Surprisingly, many doctors ignore Federal law and don’t provide VISs to parents at all. A 2001 AAP Periodic Survey of Fellows revealed that before every dose of each vaccine, 40% of pediatricians do not distribute VISs and about 50% don’t bother to discuss the risks and benefits. (4) This 2007 study revealed the CDC knows about this problem but still chose not to support a change which would help physicians follow the law. Is the CDC’s goal really education leading to an informed decision, or is it just vaccination compliance?

Summary: VISs are required for most, but not all vaccines. They do not fulfill informed consent but the government feels that’s all you need. The information is cherry-picked by experts at the ACIP and a lot of physicians don’t use them as required by law.

Stayed tuned for an in-depth look at what each VIS says, or perhaps, what it doesn’t…

(1) Fact Sheet for Vaccine Information Statements
www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/vis-facts.htm

(2) Vaccine Information Statements (VIS): Myth Exposed!
www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/vis-misconception.htm

(3) Questions & Answers: Vaccine Information Statements
www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/E/vis-q&a.pdf

(4) AAP Periodic Survey #48
www.aap.org/research/periodicsurvey/ps48b.htm

Medical Errors Costing U.S. Billions

Source: the Washington Post.

From 2004 through 2006, patient safety errors resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths of U.S. Medicare patients and cost the Medicare program $8.8 billion, according to the fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study.

This analysis of 41 million Medicare patient records, released April 8 by HealthGrades, a health care ratings organization, found that patients treated at top-performing hospitals were, on average, 43 percent less likely to experience one or more medical errors than patients at the poorest-performing hospitals.

The overall medical error rate was about 3 percent for all Medicare patients, which works out to about 1.1 million patient safety incidents during the three years included in the analysis.

Among the other findings:

Patients who experienced a patient safety incident had a 20 percent chance of dying as a result of the incident.The overall death rate among patients who experienced one or more patient safety incidents fell by almost 5 percent between 2004 and 2006.However, over that time, there were increases in post-operative respiratory failure, post-operative pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis, post-operative sepsis (blood infection), and post-operative abdominal wound separation/splitting.The most common types of medical errors were bed sores, failure to rescue, and post-operative respiratory failure. Together, they accounted for 63.4 percent of incidents. Failure to rescue improved 11.1 percent from 2004 to 2006, while both bed sores and post-operative respiratory failure worsened during that time.Of the 270,491 deaths that occurred among patients who experienced one or more patient safety incidents, 238,337 were potentially preventable, the researchers said.If all hospitals performed at the level of the top-ranked hospitals, about 220,106 patient safety incidents and 37,214 patient deaths could have been avoided, and about $2 billion could have been saved.

“While many U.S. hospitals have taken extensive action to prevent medical errors, the prevalence of likely preventable patient safety incidents is taking a costly toll on our health care systems — in both lives and dollars,” Dr. Samantha Collier, HealthGrades’ chief medical officer and primary author of the study, said in a prepared statement.

“HealthGrades has documented in numerous studies the significant and largely unchanging gap between top-performing and poor-performing hospitals. It is imperative that hospitals recognize the benchmarks set by the Distinguished Hospitals for Patient Safety are achievable and associated with higher safety and markedly lower cost,” Collier said.

Starting Oct. 1, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will stop reimbursing hospitals for the treatment of eight major preventable errors, including objects left in the body after surgery and certain kinds of post-surgical infections.