Excerpt: The Inheritance by David E. Sanger
Julian Brookes | Tuesday, June 30, 2009 11:28 PMFrom the Introduction
The Motorcade pulled up to the side of the gleaming new FBI building on Chicago’s west side at midmorning on the first Tuesday in September, just as the 2008 presidential campaign was shifting into its final, most brutal phase. There was a brief pause as Secret Service agents made one last check of the surroundings and radioed back to their headquarters that the man they had codenamed “Renegade” had arrived. Barack Obama emerged silently, a few foreign policy advisers in tow, and quickly took a waiting elevator to the tenth floor. The candidate strode past the long corridor lined with identically framed portraits of the special agents-in-charge who have run the FBI’s operations there since the era when bank robbers such as John Dillinger were still considered Public Enemy Number 1. Obama and his team were headed for the FBI’s secure conference room—a “bubble” that deflects any electronic intercepts—for one of the quietest rituals of the quadrennial presidential campaign season: a ninety-minute, classified briefing about the world that the winner of the 2008 presidential election would confront.
Waiting for him in the windowless room was a man who, unlike Obama, had been able to walk into the FBI building almost completely unnoticed. At sixty-five, J. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, was pale, a bit stooped because of a bad back, and wearing wire-rim glasses that made him look like a well-heeled consultant—the job he had held until President Bush convinced him to return to government at the lowest point of Bush’s presidency, as Iraq was dissolving into chaos in the fall of 2006.
The two men who shook hands in the bubble could not have come from more different worlds. When Obama was a six-year-old living in Jakarta, McConnell was patrolling the Mekong Delta on a small Navy boat, seeking out the Vietcong. In 1991, the same year Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, McConnell was already a veteran of the Cold War, directing the National Security Agency, the biggest and most technologically complex of the intelligence agencies. By the time Obama was heading into government service in the Illinois state legislature, McConnell had already retired from the covert world and had started a second career earning millions from corporations desperate to protect their computer systems.
* * *
The spy chief commissioned a stack of digestible reports for Obama and his rival, Senator John McCain, as a sort of field guide to American vulnerabilities at the end of the Bush era. “We came up with thirteen topics,” McConnell said. “If you made a list, you’d probably get eleven or twelve of the thirteen.”
Among the reports was a grim assessment that al Qaeda—the terror group whose middle ranks Bush used to claim were being decimated—had not only reconstituted but had more allies and associates than ever along the forbidding border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. There was a description of how the Taliban were making huge inroads into Afghanistan and how other militants saw an opportunity over the next two years to attempt the first violent overthrow of a nuclear-armed state: Pakistan. The country was ripe for the picking: Its weak, corrupt government faced national bankruptcy, an insurgency raged on the doorstep of the capital, and the Pakistani government had no comprehensive strategy to confront either threat. Nor did it seem to want one. McConnell himself had come to the conclusion months before that Pakistan’s aid to the Taliban was no act of rogue intelligence agents but instead was government policy. Nonetheless, Washington kept paying billions in “reimbursements” for counterterrorism operations to the Pakistani military.*
*The encounters with Pakistani officials that led McConnell to this conclusion are described in chapter 8, “Crossing the Line.”
From the book The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power by David Sanger. Copyright © 2009 by David Sanger. Published by arrangement with Harmony Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
Healthcare Reform Action Steps: What You Can Do
Julian Brookes | Tuesday, June 30, 2009 05:49 PM
In his new book, Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform, Gov. Howard Dean points out that “the average American has more personal stake in the outcome of [the legislative fight over healthcare reform] than any other piece of legislation before Congress for many, many years to come.” Fortunately, as he also notes, thanks to the Internet average Americans have more power than ever before to “circumvent the traditional political process” — so resistant to change and remote from grassroots activism — and shape the outcome of this epochal fight. Dr. Dean offers several action steps we can all take to ensure that affordable healthcare for all becomes a reality–and soon. Some harness the power of new technology, others rely on old-fashioned shoe leather and a willingess to talk to people; all are simple, straightforward, effective, and practical.
1. Go to the website: http://standwithdrdean.com/
This site was created by Democracy for America.
“There you will find online petitions, organizing tools, campaigns to contact your senators and congressmen to let them know how strongly you feel about Americans’ right to choose whether they want a public health insurance option or whether they want to continue with their current health insurer.”
2. Educate Yourself
Read a number of leading bloggers to keep up-to-date with the health care debate, such as:
- Ezra Klein
- Jonathan Cohn
- ThinkProgress and its policy blog The Wonk Room
- Talking Points Memo
- The Huffington Post
3. Start Writing
Write letters to editors in your local paper and letters and emails to Congressmembers
4. Take Part in Door-Knocking Campaigns.
“Most Americans respond well to people they know. You should organize door-knocking teams to talk with people you know in your neighborhood or organize door-knocking teams so that one person has repeated interaction (dropping a flyer at the door is not enough) with the same person in each household, so that a relationship is established. Widening the circle, using now just the internet, but personal interaction gives this movement for real choice in our health care system much more impact.”
5. Contact Major Companies
“It is not an accident that the health insurance industry is taking on a much more conciliatory tone during this debate than it did during the health care debate during the Clinton years. They’ve heard from you. But don’t be fooled. While their rhetoric may be conciliatory, their intention is to derail or manipulate this effort at health care reform so they can continue their march toward greater and greater earnings.”
6. Contact Other Organizations that may be active in your community, particularly those that work at the grassroots level.
Including:
Introduction: The Best of I.F. Stone
Julian Brookes | Tuesday, June 30, 2009 12:38 PM
The following article, by Peter Osnos, is excerpted from The Best of I.F. Stone.
Introduction
In late summer 1965, as I.F. Stone scrambled to find a replacement for an assistant who had landed a job at The New Republic, he took me to lunch at a restaurant in Washington, D.C.’s small Chinatown. We had, as I recalled, fish with ginger, wrapped in paper and dipped in boiling water. I was twenty-one and working for the Providence Journal in one of their local bureaus. Stone offered me $100 per week and said I would earn every penny. I stayed until the following summer, got a raise to $110 and an education in journalism (or what Izzy would have called “being a newspaperman”) worth millions.
This was a particularly good period, personally and professionally, for Stone and his four-page I.F. Stone’s Weekly. After years of being so hard-of-hearing that he had to wear an elaborate headset with antenna, making him look like a bespectacled Martian, Izzy’s ears had been repaired by a doctor (Cohen was his name) who had performed the same operation on Chairman Mao. Many people would still talk to him as though he was deaf, especially on the phone, so speaking and listening habits of years duration were being relearned. Even news gathering was different. Izzy was especially well known for poring through transcripts and finding nuggets other reporters would miss. Now he could actually hear what was being said at events like press conferences. Izzy was naturally gregarious and excited to be part of any and all conversations. But he needed to also retain his relentless pursuit of news, hidden in the recesses of papers and documents other reporters largely ignored. His restored ears were both a thrill and a distraction. Read More
Dispatches from the War Against Sex
Julian Brookes | Tuesday, June 30, 2009 12:24 PM
[Posted by Anastasia Kousakis]
Adapted from The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, by Jessica Valenti.
A 2004 report from Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) showed that more than 80 percent of federally funded abstinence programs contain false or misleading information about sex and reproductive health. Here are some examples cited in The Purity Myth.
- In her educational video “Sex Has a Price Tag” Pam Stenzel tells students that birth control could kill them and that abortion can lead to anorexia and suicide. Stenzel is one of hundreds of abstinence educators who speak in schools, churches, and community groups across the country.
- Christian comedian Keith Deltano performs his abstinence routine in Virginia high schools—it involves precariously dangling a cinderblock over the genital area of a male volunteer from the audience to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of condoms against HIV/AIDS.
- One ninth grader in Virginia Beach, Virginia, was told by her teacher that it was against the law to have pre-marital sex. “She said it had to be illegal because premarital sex undermines the family, which is a necessary thing in society.”
- Katelyn Bradley of Florida describes her middle school health class on abstinence: “They asked for several volunteers, and the woman leading the discussing held a wrapped gift. We weren’t supposed to give away this gift until after marriage. If we had sex before marriage, our special present (sexuality) would be ruined. They literally demonstrated this notion in front of the class by passing it along the line of volunteers, with each person stomping on the wrapped gift.”
Excerpt: The Best of I.F. Stone
Julian Brookes | Monday, June 29, 2009 05:33 PMThe following is excerpted from The Best of I.F. Stone.
What Few Know About the Tonkin Bay Incidents
On August 4, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson spoke on national television, asking Congress for authorization to use force in Vietnam in response to a claimed “unprovoked attack” against a U.S. destroyer on “routine patrol: in the Tonkin Gulf on August 2, followed by a “deliberate attack” by North Vietnamese PT boats on a pair of U.S. ships two days later. Three days later, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed by Congress, unanimously by the House (416–0), and by the Senate 88–2, with Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska casting the only dissenting votes. That resolution was the slender reed on which the subsequent vast escalation of the war was built. Here I. F. Stone offers one of the first investigative reports into the omissions and deceptions in mainstream reporting of the Tonkin Gulf incidents.
August 24, 1964
The American government and the American press have kept the full truth about the Tonkin Bay incidents from the American public. Let us begin with the retaliatory bombing raids on North Vietnam. When I went to New York to cover the UN Security Council debate on the affair, UN correspondents at lunch recalled cynically that four months earlier Adlai Stevenson told the Security Council the U.S. had “repeatedly expressed” its emphatic disapproval “of retaliatory raids, wherever they occur and by whomever they are committed.” But none mentioned this in their dispatches. Read More
Web Roundup: Violence Against Women, “Common Ground” on Abortion?, Rebranding Virginity
Julian Brookes | Monday, June 29, 2009 05:00 PMRelated PBC Book
[Posted by Elena Sytcheva]
On Friday, Vice President Joe Biden—who authored the groundbreaking Violence Against Women Act —brought domestic violence policy to the forefront by announcing Lynn Rosenthal as White House Advisor on Violence Against Women. The appointment of Rosenthal, whose primary role in this newly created position will be to advise President Obama and Vice President Biden on domestic violence and sexual assault issues, coordinate with government agencies, and develop new initiates combating violence with advocacy groups and Congress members, is no-doubt a positive move. However, given that women experience about 4.8 million intimate-partner related physical assaults and rapes per year in the U.S. alone, according to the National Organization for Women (NOW), there is still much work to be done on this front. Sue Else, the President of the National Network to End Domestic Violence, commented, “Lynn Rosenthal is a pioneer in the movement against domestic abuse and sexual assault. Her expertise will help to shape federal policies that will serve countless survivors of domestic and sexual violence.” During a panel discussion on domestic violence, that took place after Biden’s announcement, Kim Gandy, outgoing President of NOW added, “It’s extremely important to have advocacy at the highest level of government for both prevention and services related to the extraordinary epidemic.” Read More
Excerpt: Sick by Jonathan Cohn
Julian Brookes | Monday, June 29, 2009 04:07 PM
The following is an excerpt from Sick: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price by Jonathan Cohn.
April 10, 2007 — It was 4:43 on a clear November afternoon when the paramedics found Cynthia Kline, pale and short of breath, slumped against a bedpost in her double-decker Cambridge home. Although Kline was in obvious pain, she seemed keenly aware of what was happening inside her 55-year-old body. One of her blood vessels had closed off, blocking the flow of blood to her heart. Minutes before, she had phoned 911, taken the nitroglycerin tablets prescribed for such an emergency, then waited for help to arrive — an ordeal that stretched out an agonizing extra few seconds while the rescue workers, having found the front door locked, scampered in through an open second-story window. Now, while the paramedics worked busily over her, noting vital signs consistent with cardiac distress, Kline turned to one of them with an anxious plea: “Take me to Mount Auburn Hospital.”
Kline, a teacher who worked with special-needs children, had no formal medical training. Yet her instinct about where to go was as sound as a seasoned cardiologist’s. Nearby Mount Auburn Hospital, a private teaching facility affiliated with Harvard Medical School, had some of the city’s finest doctors and nurses. More important, it had an intensive cardiac care unit that specialized in cases like hers. A few days earlier, staff at Mount Auburn had treated Kline’s advanced coronary disease by inserting a balloon into her circulatory system and then expanding it, in order to open up a partially blocked blood vessel. A variant on the very same procedure, “cardiac catheterization,” could be used in an emergency like this one, when the flow of blood through a vessel was almost completely cut off. Cardiac catheterization had saved literally thousands of lives across the country. Read More
Excerpt: Howard Dean’s Prescription for REAL Health Care Reform
Julian Brookes | Monday, June 29, 2009 04:03 PMThe following is an excerpt from Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Healthcare Reform by Gov. Howard Dean M.D. with Igor Volsky and Faiz Shakir (Chelsea Green).
Much has been made of the 48 million Americans who don’t have health insurance. Their stories are heart-rending, and it’s a scandal that in the wealthiest nation on earth, we do not cover everybody. No other industrial democracy in the world puts up with this embarrassment. But the debate on healthcare reform—which is coming to a peak once again—should also focus on the fact that many Americans who do have health insurance don’t find out that it doesn’t adequately cover them until them until it is too late.
What’s the real issue?
The real issue in the debate over healthcare reform is not whether we should have “socialized medicine” or not. It’s whether we should continue with an extraordinarily inefficient system that today features a private insurance industry that takes large amounts of money out of the healthcare system for shareholders, administrators, and executives, while denying people the basic coverage they have paid for.
How to frame the debate
The debate about healthcare reform is not a debate about how much a role the government should play. Instead, the debate should focus on this simple question: Should we give Americans under 65 the same choice we give Americans over 65? Should we give all Americans a choice of opting out of the private health insurance system and benefiting from a public health insurance plan? Americans ought to be able to decide for themselves. Read More
Sick: Health Insurance Nightmares
Julian Brookes | Monday, June 29, 2009 03:47 PM[Posted by Corinne Lestch]
In, Sick, his terrific book about the crisis in healthcare in the United States, reporter Jonathan Cohn tells the real-life (and all too typical) stories of ordinary Americans from coast to coast who have learned firsthand how badly broken the system is. Here are a few examples drawn from the book. (For more about Sick, click on the cover at right.)
Who: Janice Ramsey, a consultant from Deltona, Florida
Ailment: Diabetes
Insurance nightmare: No one wanted to cover her – diabetes is a condition for which a medical provider will deny coverage; she took the bait on an insurance scam called American Benefit Plans and encountered a bill in the mail for several thousand dollars of unpaid hospital expenses seven months after signing up with the company.
Outcome: Only through a realtor’s license was Ramsey able to obtain group-style healthcare coverage.
Quote from Sick: “It’s embarrassing,” she later said, “because I’ve never asked anybody for anything and I don’t like not being able to take care of myself.” (p. 28)
***
Who: Steven and Elizabeth Hilsabeck, a banker and a trade show employee from Austin, Texas and their twins Parker and Sarah
Ailment: Following a premature birth, Parker suffered from cerebral palsy.
Insurance nightmare: PruCare, the family’s HMO provider, would pay for no more than 60 days of physical therapy – which Parker needed if he wanted a chance to walk – over the course of a lifetime.
Outcome: Elizabeth formed an advocacy group to raise awareness about how managed care affects families with disabled children and lobbied her local and state government leaders, accepting financial assistance from wherever it came. She and her husband, Steven, got divorced mostly because of the financial and emotional burdens with which they struggled.
Quote from Sick: “Well,” said Elizabeth, “I’m living in Austin now, I am not employed, and I am one pissed-off mom.” (p. 82)
***
Name: Russ and Gina Doren, a high school biology teacher and a community college student from Denver, Colorado.
Ailment: Gina suffered from severe depression and other mental illnesses.
Insurance nightmare: Russ’s private medical insurance provider, which he had through his teaching job, offered only limited benefits for mental illnesses, and gave Gina only 45 days of psychiatric inpatient care over the course of a year. The Dorens’ outstanding balance amounted to $50,000 at one time. Gina continued exhibiting self-destructive and suicidal behavior, this time in front of their young son, Kory, while she was out of the hospital.
Outcome: After multiple suicide attempts, Gina overdosed on pills one last time, and was treated at a hospital. But she had lost weight since her last attempt, and died. Only years later did the Colorado legislature pass a parity law that would require insurers to provide equal benefits for mental and physical conditions.
Quote from Sick: “Gina was constantly apologizing for the money problems she had caused the family; and on a note written after one of her suicide attempts, she scribbled, ‘No more debt. No more hospitals.’” (p. 206)
***
Who: Marijon Binder, a live-in elderly caretaker from Chicago, Illinois
Ailment: Binder had suffered a heart attack, and, one day, at 62 years old, she felt a pain in her chest. Paramedics came despite her efforts to wave them off.
Insurance nightmare: As a live-in aide, Binder had no health insurance (she and her housemate lived off a monthly Social Security check and pension). Binder was taken to Resurrection Medical Center, one of Chicago’s premier Catholic medical institutions; as a former nun who served for 35 years, she thought the hospital staff would understand her circumstances. Instead, Binder received a bill in the mail of $11,000 for her two-night stay, and later, after miscommunication between she and Resurrection management, a summons for a lawsuit.
Outcome: After getting legal assistance from a local law school, filing necessary paperwork, and relaying her story, a judge ruled in Binder’s favor and the fees were dropped.
Quote from Sick: “The whole experience was very demeaning. It made me feel very guilty; it made me feel like a criminal. I can imagine what it does to other people who are poor.”
