This Week in the News
This week, President Bush travelled to Canada for a summit the with Canadian Prime Minister and Mexican President Calderon. At the summit, the President privately discussed a new package of aid, rumored to be in excess of $25 billion, to help Mexico fight its drug cartels. Mexican President Calderon has launched a crack down on the cartels which have grown wealthy due to US demand for the product. The aid package ads to the $19 billion the Administration plans to spend this year on the War on Drugs. (State governments will kick in an equal amount.) Since 1974 the cost of street drugs has remained steady, overall drug use has remained steady (with some peaks and valleys), and the amount of illicit drugs smuggled into the US has grown as has the strength and purity of street drugs. The War on Drugs -- Digging the Same Hole Deeper.
This week, the Bush Administration continued one of its most important ideological battles: keeping health insurance out of the hands of America children. New regulations announced by the Administration will make it more difficult for states to offer families health insurance through the federal SCHIP program. The administration contends that further expanding the program would drive families away from private insurance and deal a blow to the insurance industry. Said Tommy LaMotta, the author the new guidelines and Director of the Insurance Institute, "Private insurers are struggling for every dollar they get. While profits have doubled since 2000, they have not kept pace with the price of a summer home in the Hamptons or membership at a decent country club. We should not have to compete for with the government for the hard won dollars of the lower middle class. Somebody has to stick up for the big guy here."
This week, more insurance news. Despite the catastrophe's of Hurricane Katrina and other storms, property insurers in the US saw their profits rise some 18% in 2006. Insurance analysts attribute the $44 billion rise in profits to increased use of "re insurance" policies purchased from foreign firms that pay domestic insurance firms on their losses, as well as a shifting of the costs for natural disasters to private individuals and the government. Noted, Tommy LaMotta, "After Andrew and Northridge in the early 1990s, we said to ourselves 'we want to insure, but not on really bad stuff, cuz that costs us money.' So we lobbied and sobbed and got into a few think tanks and the next thing you know there is all sorts of state and federal insurance funds out there for people who have real troubles and the courts started reading our policies more narrowly. So now, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, sorry, the public picks up the tab. See the deal is, you want to keep your profits to yourself, but get other people to cover your losses."
This week, the ACLU obtained a copy of the "Presidential Advance Manual" a document created by the White House that explains how to deter protesters at the President's public appearances. Among the Manual's advice: make sure only the most ardent supporters of the Administration are allowed to sit between the dias and the first bank of cameras; when possible close the event to anyone who does not support the President; organize a "Rally Corp" of College Republicans to cordone off protesters and/or shout them down; and encourage local police to restrict protesters to areas out of sight of cameras and the President. Reacting to the disclosure of the White House's sophisticated policy for quelling dissent, White House Spinster Tony Snow said, "It is not that the President is thin skinned or anything like that. No. When images of the President are beamed out all over the nation and world, the last thing we want is for anyone to get the idea that he is not unanimously loved and adored. Once people see that there are people willing to express their dissatisfaction, well... then they think they can express their dissatisfaction. We like to stop that snowball at the top of the hill knowwhatImean?*
This week, the Bush Administration issued a National Intelligence Estimate critical of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al- Maliki and rumor has it that some in Washington support a return to power of Ayed Allawi, who served as Iraq's Interim Prime Minister. In fact, the Beltway lobbying firm of Barbour Griffith & Rogers has been retained to push the idea of Allawi's return. While some have been critical of the fact that Iraq's current Prime Minsister has been unable to make any progress (his Parliament is on vacation and half his ministers have resigned in protest), one anonymous supporter of Allawi was actually optimistic: "This is actually a great step forward for Iraq. You know you have joined the community of nations when you must lobby the US government in order to change leaders."
* A heavily redacted copy of the Manual is available at www.aclu.org
This week, the Bush Administration continued one of its most important ideological battles: keeping health insurance out of the hands of America children. New regulations announced by the Administration will make it more difficult for states to offer families health insurance through the federal SCHIP program. The administration contends that further expanding the program would drive families away from private insurance and deal a blow to the insurance industry. Said Tommy LaMotta, the author the new guidelines and Director of the Insurance Institute, "Private insurers are struggling for every dollar they get. While profits have doubled since 2000, they have not kept pace with the price of a summer home in the Hamptons or membership at a decent country club. We should not have to compete for with the government for the hard won dollars of the lower middle class. Somebody has to stick up for the big guy here."
This week, more insurance news. Despite the catastrophe's of Hurricane Katrina and other storms, property insurers in the US saw their profits rise some 18% in 2006. Insurance analysts attribute the $44 billion rise in profits to increased use of "re insurance" policies purchased from foreign firms that pay domestic insurance firms on their losses, as well as a shifting of the costs for natural disasters to private individuals and the government. Noted, Tommy LaMotta, "After Andrew and Northridge in the early 1990s, we said to ourselves 'we want to insure, but not on really bad stuff, cuz that costs us money.' So we lobbied and sobbed and got into a few think tanks and the next thing you know there is all sorts of state and federal insurance funds out there for people who have real troubles and the courts started reading our policies more narrowly. So now, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, sorry, the public picks up the tab. See the deal is, you want to keep your profits to yourself, but get other people to cover your losses."
This week, the ACLU obtained a copy of the "Presidential Advance Manual" a document created by the White House that explains how to deter protesters at the President's public appearances. Among the Manual's advice: make sure only the most ardent supporters of the Administration are allowed to sit between the dias and the first bank of cameras; when possible close the event to anyone who does not support the President; organize a "Rally Corp" of College Republicans to cordone off protesters and/or shout them down; and encourage local police to restrict protesters to areas out of sight of cameras and the President. Reacting to the disclosure of the White House's sophisticated policy for quelling dissent, White House Spinster Tony Snow said, "It is not that the President is thin skinned or anything like that. No. When images of the President are beamed out all over the nation and world, the last thing we want is for anyone to get the idea that he is not unanimously loved and adored. Once people see that there are people willing to express their dissatisfaction, well... then they think they can express their dissatisfaction. We like to stop that snowball at the top of the hill knowwhatImean?*
This week, the Bush Administration issued a National Intelligence Estimate critical of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al- Maliki and rumor has it that some in Washington support a return to power of Ayed Allawi, who served as Iraq's Interim Prime Minister. In fact, the Beltway lobbying firm of Barbour Griffith & Rogers has been retained to push the idea of Allawi's return. While some have been critical of the fact that Iraq's current Prime Minsister has been unable to make any progress (his Parliament is on vacation and half his ministers have resigned in protest), one anonymous supporter of Allawi was actually optimistic: "This is actually a great step forward for Iraq. You know you have joined the community of nations when you must lobby the US government in order to change leaders."
* A heavily redacted copy of the Manual is available at www.aclu.org
posted by Jack Reed at 11:00 AM
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