Maybe This Time Someone Will Call Her On It

Let the lying begin:

When a proposal to encourage end-of-life planning touched off a political storm over “death panels,” Democrats dropped it from legislation to overhaul the health care system. But the Obama administration will achieve the same goal by regulation, starting Jan. 1.

Before the grifters, charlatans, flim-flammers and political opportunists that make up the leadership of the conservative movement get a chance to crank out a million misleading words on this, here it is:

Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

Advanced directives are state law. Here’s Ohio, in plain language. This is from a hospital site:

Advance Directives are legal planning tools that help you make your wishes known. In Ohio, we have 5 Advance Directive tools:
·Living Will
·Durable Power or Attorney for Health Care
·Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) Comfort Care Order
·Mental Health Declarative
·Organ Donation

Advanced directives aren’t controversial. They aren’t new. Ohio’s law went in nineteen years ago. They aren’t frightening. There are provisions in all fifty states for anyone to draft an advanced directive, with or without a lawyer. All this rule change does is allow Medicare to pay doctors for a consult on the medical issues surrounding end of life care.

This rule change gives patients and prospective patients more information, not less. This rule change allows more autonomy and power for the individual to make decisions, not less.

That Sarah Palin was able to launch her celebrity career by misleading and terrifying millions of people is shameful. That conservatives and media went along and managed to completely muddle an issue that was debated and discussed and implemented at the state level 20 years ago is shameful. But it happened, and it will happen again.

“While we are very happy with the result, we won’t be shouting it from the rooftops because we aren’t out of the woods yet,” Mr. Blumenauer’s office said in an e-mail in early November to people working with him on the issue. “This regulation could be modified or reversed, especially if Republican leaders try to use this small provision to perpetuate the ‘death panel’ myth.”

I think they should shout if from the rooftops. Allowing conservatives to mislead people is just wrong.

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Two Losers

I wasn’t able to follow the lame duck session closely, because the weeks prior to the holidays in this office are ordinarily filled with crisis and drama and last-minute filings, plus, I had to decorate two Christmas trees and talk a lot about possibly baking cookies.

I was catching up, and read this on START:

Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who led the floor fight for the treaty, said the vote will move the world away from the risk of nuclear disaster. “The winners are not defined by party or ideology,” he said. “The winners are the American people, who are safer with fewer Russian missiles aimed at them.”

Which got me thinking about John McCain and John Kerry, and how the two men were and are portrayed, and how things have turned out, in real life.

McCain and Kerry have quite a bit in common. Both long-term Senators, both lifetime “government employees”, both veterans, hell, they both married wealthy women (the second time around), so there’s some similarity even in their personal lives.

They’re also members of a very exclusive club. They both lost Presidential elections.

And that’s where the similarities end.

After John Kerry lost to George W. Bush, he returned to the Senate and simply did his job there, and he’s continued to do his job there.

Kerry lost, big, on climate change this year and he still rallied and led on START, rather than booking time on cable shows to bitch.

Kerry didn’t subject the country to two years of bitter griping, temper tantrums and petulant demands. Kerry didn’t pursue purely personal vendettas against whole groups of voters who (allegedly) “betrayed” him. Kerry didn’t flip-flop on each and every policy position he has ever held. He voted and votes the same way he always did. John McCain, remarkably, considering what we were told about him, has done all those awful things since his loss in 2008.

In the 2004 Presidential election, political media and pundits portrayed John Kerry as an elitist, foppish, slightly silly “flip-flopper” who lacked character and core convictions. The same political media and pundits lovingly and carefully nurtured the fairy tale that John McCain is a rock-ribbed, Country First, straight-shooter. Events since tell a radically different story.

How can this be? Wasn’t this script supposed to run the other way? Could they have been more wrong?

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Before Matoko Chan Completely Loses It

Yesterday I linked to Douthat, and apparently I should have actually linked to this essay, which describes Assange’s philosophy in much more detail. My apologies.

That link is a fascinating read, btw.

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Early Evening Open Thread

Reason #2,657,893 why people think libertarians are arseholes: Would-be hipsters who never got over being the smartest little fella in the high-school debating club awarding themselves hall monitor sashes. And not having the balls to show off their self-invented “title” in front of the people they claim to be… ombudsmanning.

Now I’m going to go read the comments to DougJ’s post, and anyone who’s already congratulated Kain for his Extremely Thougtful Self-Aggrandizement That Has Never Been Made With Such Care Before… is welcome to bring it over here.

Maybe I should add a “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” category…

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Juvenile Justice

Wanted to return to these posts by DougJ and John Cole because juvenile justice is one area where really positive things are happening.

Slowly.

First, the boot camp, get-tough approach endorsed and promoted by George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and a host of others has been completely discredited and is the process of being scrapped.

Thankfully.

Terrible ideas eventually die, it just takes a long time.

Then there’s the Missouri Model:

Juvenile justice experts across the nation say that the approach, known as the Missouri Model, is one of several promising reform movements that strapped states are trying to reduce the costly confinement of youths. California, which spends more than $200,000 a year on each incarcerated juvenile, reallocated $93 million in prison expenses by reducing state confinement.

There is no barbed wire around facilities like Missouri Hills, on the outskirts of St. Louis. No more than 10 youths and 2 adults called facilitators live in cottage-style dormitories in a wooded setting, a far cry from the quasi penitentiaries in other states. When someone becomes unruly, the other youths are trained to talk him down. Perhaps most impressive, Missouri has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the country.

It’s happening all over the country, but here’s New York

The Bloomberg administration plans to merge the city’s Department of Juvenile Justice into its child welfare agency, signaling a more therapeutic approach toward delinquency that will send fewer of the city’s troubled teenagers to jail.

Gov. David A. Paterson introduced legislation on Wednesday to begin overhauling New York’s troubled juvenile prison system, in what aides described at a first step toward broader changes long sought by critics of the system. The legislation would prohibit judges from placing youths in state juvenile prisons unless they had been found guilty of a violent felony or a sex crime or a judge had determined that a youth posed a significant risk to themselves or others. Such a move would set the stage to significantly shrink the number of youths in state custody.

This isn’t a cure-all. The single worst case of abuse I’ve seen occurred when a juvenile was detained at a “family atmosphere” private group home, not in a detention center, but the approach has to change, and it’s changing.

More reading on reforming juvenile justice here.

If anyone has a personal experience in or with or around the juvenile justice system, I would be interested in hearing about that. Just drop it in the comments. No names. Of course.

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Bureaucrats

It was, according to New Jersey’s governor, a $400 million mistake. The state was drenched in recriminations on Wednesday as Gov. Chris Christie said a clerical error by a midlevel official had caused the state to lose out on $400 million in federal school reform money — an error that caused its Race to the Top grant application to fall short of the 10-member winner’s circle by just three points.

“That’s the stuff that drives people nuts about government, and that’s what the Obama administration should answer for,” he said. “When the president comes back to New Jersey, he is going to have to explain to the people of the state of New Jersey why he is depriving them of $400 million that this application earned them, because one of his Bureaucrats in Washington couldn’t pick up the phone and ask a question.”

But federal officials released a video on Thursday evening showing that Mr. Schundler and his administration had not provided the information when asked. Mr. Christie, asked later Thursday about the videotape in a radio interview, said he would be seriously disappointed if it turned out he had been misled.

Christie fired Schundler, so that’s good.

But, shouldn’t Chris Christie explain to the people of New Jersey why he didn’t pick up a phone and ask a question before pointing at Obama, because that’s what people hate about bureaucrats, how they won’t do that?

Too, is it ordinary to videotape a competitive grant process? I’m glad they did and do, or I’m sure there would be all kinds of false charges, but is that what’s been done in the past?

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Corrections

Sure blew it on two things in the last 24 hours- the Blumenthal piece is pretty clearly a political hit, with the GOP even taking credit. Did he blur the lines- sure, but he has also unequivocably stated he did not serve in Viet Nam, and the Times piece certainly did not leave that impression.

Second, it is pretty clear the “indefinite detention” ruling yesterday is nothing like what it was reported to be. Citizen Alan and others in the comments set me straight.

I was way wrong on both of those.

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Thanks, HuffPo

And it turns out that the comments from Howard Dean that I labeled unadulterated idocy and that completely got my knickers in a full twist- he never made them:

Several outlets, including the Huffington Post, reported Dean’s comments in the context that he had soured on the president because of the concessions made on health care. The former DNC chair reached out to the Huffington Post to correct the record.

“I said I was going to vote for him and that I support him vigorously,” Dean said. “It wasn’t your fault, Joe heard me wrong. When I looked back and looked at it I can see what happened. But I said I was going to support him and I am.”

The footage from the show does clearly show Dean uttering the word “not” before “vigorously.” But there is enough of a pause in there to suggest that he had been trying to start a different train of thought before changing course. And Dean’s reaction to Scarborough’s confetti line suggests he wasn’t entirely sure what the laughter was all about.

So my apologies, Gov. Dean. You didn’t say anything stupid.

But for all of you who pooh-poohed me when I thought it was disastrous politics and really bad form for the former chair of the DNC to be trashing his own President, you know who obviously agrees with me? Howard Dean, who reached out to correct the record because it would have been terrible to have that out there.

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When the Cockleshell Shatters and the Hammers Batter Down the Door

Via Radley Balko, more evidence that we have collectively lost our minds:

Sunday bowling events, spaghetti dinners and card games have entertained folks at Akron’s Jednota Club since the 1930s.

Now the Morgan Avenue Slovak organization may be forced to change one of its Old World customs — thanks to a police raid.

A card tournament organizer, Norman D. Metz, 63, is to stand trial Thursday in Summit County Common Pleas Court on two counts of operating a gambling house at the club and two additional counts of gambling.

Police Lt. Terry Pasko, head of the department’s vice unit, said vice detectives — acting on a complaint — raided the club at 2 p.m. on Aug. 17.

None of the 50 or 60 club patrons playing in the euchre tournament that day was arrested, Pasko said, because the focus of the police operation was Metz and his wife as the alleged ‘’operators’’ of the event.

This is insane.

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A Correction

Got an important email which I read, responded and asked if I could publish in full, and was given permission, so her we go:

John,

Your recent blog post “Unintended Consequences” was based on a misleading AP article that overlooks the overwhelmingly positive impact of unemployment insurance provisions in the economic recovery package. Unfortunately, the article may have caused some struggling unemployed people to unnecessarily fear they will lose their food stamp benefits.

The article correctly stated that as a part of its economic recovery bill, Congress enacted a number of measures to strengthen Unemployment Insurance — including a $25 per week increase in benefits. It told the story of Mr. Mark Milota who, as a result of the additional $100 per month in unemployment benefits, lost his food stamp eligibility and $300 per month in benefits from that program. The article suggested that his experience was not uncommon. However, while technically possible, this example is an extremely rare case. There are three simple reasons that explain why his experience was so unusual:

· Very few people participate in both the Unemployment Insurance (UI) and Food Stamp Programs. An average of 2.5 million people received unemployment benefits in 2007. Of these, only 203,000 (8.1%) were also participating in the Food Stamp Program. And, of these, only about 14,000 people had incomes close enough to the federal food stamp cut-off line that a $100 per month increase in unemployment benefits would put them at risk of losing food stamps. We don’t yet have data that tells us how many people are receiving both UI and food stamp benefits this year. However, if we apply the apply the above proportions from 2007 to 2009 UI enrollment data, 30,000 people of the 5.3 million people currently claiming UI benefits would be at risk of losing eligibility altogether. That’s less than 1/2 of 1 percent.

· States have the flexibility to increase the income cut-off in their Food Stamp Program in a way that would protect this group. At least 16 states have already done so and 4 more have plans to implement the change shortly. Once we factor in that individuals in these states are fully protected from what happened to Mr. Milota, the number at risk of losing benefits drops to about 14,000 people in 2009, (again, estimating based on what we know from the 2007 data). That means that today, fewer than 1/3 of one percent of the 5.3 million people claiming unemployment benefits would have been at risk of losing food stamp eligibility as a result of the economic recovery package changes.

· Finally – a fact completely ignored by the story—most households on both programs would not have seen their food stamps decrease as a result of the increase in unemployment benefits. Normally, when a household’s income goes up, their food stamps are adjusted downward to reflect that they have more ability to purchase food. But, the economic recovery legislation also included a significant bump-up in food stamp benefits of about $20 per person (regardless of income). So, virtually all households participating in both food stamps and unemployment benefits got both an increase in unemployment AND food stamps through the recovery package.

In failing to provide context to Mr. Milota’s troubling story, the article missed the larger point: The economic recovery act’s increase in UI and Food Stamps delivered immediate help to over 39 million people who are feeling the harshest effects of the recession.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions about this.

Kind regards,

Shannon Spillane

Senior Communications Associate

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Good to know that there are folks out there tracking down the misinformation and correcting the record.

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The Fat Patient and Her Fat-Headed Doctor

Remember the patient I ridiculed for filing a complaint against her Doctor for telling her she is obese? Turns out there is more to the story:

The state is investigating a doctor accused of telling a patient she was so obese she might only be attractive to black men and advising another to shoot herself following brain surgery.

“Let’s face it, if your husband were to die tomorrow, who would want you?” the state Board of Medicine says Dr. Terry Bennett told the overweight patient in June 2004.

“Well, men might want you, but not the types you want to want you. Might even be a black guy,” it quoted him as saying, based on the woman’s complaint.

Certainly paints a different picture.

*** Edited Slightly For Accuracy ***

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Gorelick Wall Flap

Last week, when the new information regarding Able Danger was released, I incorrectly intimated that this somehow involved Jamie Gorelick’s ‘wall’ decision/enforcement. It does not.

I stand by my other statements regarding Gorelick’s conflict of interest because of her close relationship with the House of Saud.

On a side note, I do find it increasingly pathetic that Thinkprogress is spending all their time demanding that Glenn Reynolds make a retraction for a statement he never made, and to compound that demand with demands he retract statements that remain accurate. Pretty amusing stuff.

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When Patterico Speaks

Patterico states I was over the line condemning Malkin’s post, and he is right. So:

1.) I apologize to you all and Michelle for the tone and tenor, as well as the language.

2.) I want it made clear that I in no way think the racist crap that is heaped upon Malkin is in any way fair, or justified, or deserved. I said I can understand why she gets it, but that in no way excuses the fact that people say those things. Really, some of the stuff that has been said in the comments of that thread sounds like something spewed by Stormfront or other white supremacist groups. Long story short- what I said was unfair to Michelle and stupid.

I still disagree about the relevance of Sheehan’s marital status and record, but there will be a time for that later, and I don’t want this turning into a typical Washington non-apology apology.

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Should Have Known

The LA Times piece on tort reform I linked to several days ago and thought was an interesting read appears to be nothing but a bunch of false premises built upon strawmen.

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This Is Terrible

Turns out the kid the police shot dead in London the other day had nothing to do with the bombings:

Police announced Saturday that the man officers shot dead on a London subway car Friday morning was “not connected” with the bombing incidents of the day before.

“We are now satisfied that he was not connected with the incidents of Thursday 21st July 2005,” police said in a statement.

“For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets,” the police said.

“The man emerged from a block of flats in the Stockwell area that were under police surveillance as part of the investigation into the incidents on Thursday 21st July,” the statement said.

“He was then followed by surveillance officers to the underground station. His clothing and behavior added to their suspicions,” the statement said.

It added that the circumstances that led to the man’s death were being investigated.

Plainclothes police chased a South Asian man into the crowded subway car Friday morning and shot him in front of terrified passengers, as the hunt intensified for four suspects believed to have carried out abortive bomb attacks on the transit system the day before.

Which makes me regret this statement:

Several of you have asked if I have any thoughts about the new London bombing attempts or the subsequent shooting. Other than “If he was a terrorist, shoot him again,” I have nothing to offer.

Why he was wearing a winter coat in July, ignored police, jumped a turnstile, asnd the rest of the rest of the described behaviors is anyone’s guess.

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