From The Progressive Review
FROM THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source
E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com
WORD
Cops is a race all their own -- Easy Rawlins
PAGE ONE MUST
FEDERAL JUDGE SAYS COPS CAN PUT SECRET GPS ON YOUR CAR WITHOUT WARRANT
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?category=REGIONOTHER&storyID=322152&BCCode=&newsdate=1/11/2005
BRENDAN LYONS, ALBANY TIMES UNION - In a decision that could dramatically affect criminal investigations nationwide, a federal judge has ruled police didn't need a warrant when they attached a satellite tracking device to the underbelly of a car being driven by a suspected Hells Angels operative. The ruling by U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd clears the way for a federal trial scheduled to begin next month in Utica in which seven alleged Hells Angels members and associates, including several from the Capital Region, face drug-trafficking charges.
The use of satellite tracking devices has stirred controversy and Hurd's ruling differs from a decision last spring by a Nassau County Court judge, who decided police needed a warrant when they used the technology to follow a burglary suspect. . .
Hurd opined that authorities wouldn't need a warrant had they decided to follow Moran, so using a GPS device was merely a simpler way to track his car "as it traveled on the public highways," he wrote. "Moran had no expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle on a public roadway. Thus, there was no search or seizure and no Fourth Amendment implications in the use of the GPS device."
Hurd's ruling follows a line of reasoning that's widely supported by many law enforcement agencies. Police contend using tracking devices is no different than if they followed a suspect's vehicle in their own cars or by using helicopters.
Kevin Mulroy, Moran's attorney, said the issue, which has brought conflicting rulings across the nation, is unsettling. "I think it's something the Supreme Court of the United States is going to have to hear," said Mulroy, a Syracuse attorney who was formerly an Onondaga County Court judge and assistant prosecutor. "One would think that before the police could install devices on your property, to monitor your movements, they would need a court order."
A similar controversy arose in Washington two years ago, when that state's Supreme Court determined police had the right to attach a satellite tracking device to a murder suspect's car, but only after obtaining a warrant.
POLITICS
HOW THE DEMOCRATS LOST THE ELECTION
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/01/the_democratic_.html
DOUG IRELAND, DIRELAND - The National Journal's Daily Poll Track yesterday brought news of a new national survey that ought to make Democrats disgusted with the leadership of their party sit up and take notice:
"Television advertising alone cost more than a billion and a half dollars in 2004, but who exactly was supposed to get the message?," asked the Journal. "A new Annenberg survey found that only 15 percent of voters considered voting for the other presidential candidate at any point in the election cycle. Supporters of President Bush and John Kerry were statistically even: Eighty-four percent of Bush voters and 85 percent of Kerry voters said there was never a time they thought they would cast ballots for the other candidate."
"Quoting Annenberg political director Adam Clymer, the survey's analysis suggests the results 'vindicated a campaign strategy of playing to the base and spending relatively less time and money on undecided voters or soft supporters of the other candidate,' adding that Clymer thinks 'the Bush campaign was especially skillful at implementing that strategy.'" That is, if anything, an understatement and ignores how the Democratic campaign did just the opposite. . .
And who was responsible for the failed Democratic strategy? Why, the overpaid Democratic consultants whom Kerry hired, one layer after another, as he flailed about trying to get traction with the electorate. . .[As I wrote] "These millionaire media goniffs and Clintonista off-year whores for Corporate America, to whom Kerry is now listening, are themselves deaf to the wails of distress coming from those Democrats in the battleground states who have been begging for a bold Kerry economic attack on Bush, which they see as the only way of having a prayer of defeating this war president by mobilizing the victims of the Bush economy and energizing the desultory Democratic base." . . .
Now, in the latest issue of the Washington Monthly, Amy Sullivan - in a first-rate broadside entitled "Fire the Consultants," has provided a damning bill of indictment against these guns for hire, "a clique of Washington consultants who, through their insider ties, continue to get rewarded with business even after losing continually."
Among those who fall under Sullivan's scalpel are two of this overpaid tribe who were most responsible for Kerry's failed strategy: Bob Shrum, his media man and message guru. . . Sullivan sniffs that Shrummy "has no genius for strategy and very little feel for what makes Middle America tick"; and Mark Mellman, who--as Kerry's pollster--urged him to stay away from attacking Bush. "Mellman," Sullivan justly writes, "is popular among Democrats because he tells them what they so desperately want to hear: Their policies are sound, Americans really agree with them more than with Republicans, and if they just repeat their mantras loud enough, voters will eventually embrace the party...."
In a party bereft of new ideas, Sullivan points out, "The consultants are filling a vacuum. After all, someone has to formulate the message that a candidate can use to win the voters' support."
WHO'S BUYING ACCESS TO BUSH
ASSOCIATED PRESS - The team collecting private donations to finance President George W. Bush's inaugural festivities has taken in $18 million, putting it nearly halfway to its goal of at least $40 million. . . The latest donors include Cinergy Corp, an energy company whose businesses include electric and natural gas distribution in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. . . Other new $250,000 underwriters include AT&T; Bank of America; Bristol-Myers Squibb Co; United Parcel Service San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos; American Financial Group of Cincinnati and one of its top executives, Carl H. Lindner [Ed. Note: of Chiquita Banana fame]; New Energy Corp. of South Bend, Indiana; Thomas Stephenson, a partner in Sequoia Capital in Atherton, California; and Maryland-based Strongbow Technologies Corp.
Several new contributors gave $100,000 to become inaugural "sponsors," a level of giving that also includes tickets to an array of events leading up to and including the inauguration at the Capitol on January 20. Those include the Pepsi-Cola Co.; Tyson Foods; Goldman-Sachs Group Inc. California Farm Bureau Federation; Titus Electrical Contracting of Austin, Texas; Hunting Engineering Co. of Bridgeton, Missouri; Intervest Construction of Daytona Beach, Florida; and Computer Associates International of Islandia, New York.
SOCIAL SECURITY
MISSING POINTS IN THE SOCIAL SECURITY DEBATE
SAM SMITH - Listening to some of the liberals leading the fight to save Social Security brings to mind how out of practice Democrats are in fighting for the things that created their modern party. And how much is not being discussed in this controversy.
Here are a few points that should be stressed and aren't:
1. While it would be nice to keep the trust fund in balance, ultimately there is no reason why Social Security should be terminally imprisoned in a trust fund while homeland security and national security, for example, aren't. The Pentagon would have gone broke years ago if it had to live by the same rules as Social Security. It is, in the end, a matter of how we want to spend our money: killing Iraqis or taking care of senior Americans.
2. Seniors are only one part of the mostly non-working portion of the American economy. The other big part is children. Together they make up something called the dependent population. If you're going to panic you better add up both costs. Here's something interesting you find when you do: In 1960, the dependent population of the U.S. - children and old people - was 45%. By 2020 it will be 40%.
3. The fact that the federal government may have to refill the Social Trust fund's coffers in 2018 or whenever isn't Social Security's fault; it's the federal government's. As Gene Lyon put it: "Here's what . . . Bush and the think tank spokesmen actually mean when they say Social Security's going broke: They mean that the trust fund has been looted fair and square, that everybody who's been paying those increased payroll taxes since 1983 has been successfully swindled and that the U.S. government need not honor those special issue Treasury bonds." "As David Sarasohn of The Oregonian recently noted, each and every special-issue bond in the Social Security Trust Fund bears the following inscription: 'The bond is supported by the full faith and credit of the United States, and the United States is pledged to the payment of the bond with respect to both principal and interest.'"
Blaming Social Security for what the federal government did with the money it borrowed is like blaming Citibank because you used this month's mortgage payment on a new computer. It doesn't compute.
4. If things are as bad as the trustees think in their projection of the economy then you probably don't want to invest in the stock market.
5. There are plenty of ways to add money to the trust fund. Like increasing the cap so that rich advocates of privatization have to pay more into Social Security.
6. As a percent of GDP, the increased cost of Social Security over the next 75 years will be less than increased education spending between 1946 and 1966 or about the same as the increase in Social Security taxes between 1960 and 1995.
7. The Social Security trustees keep changing their projections notes the Economic Policy Institute. In the 8 years between 1996 and 2004, the depletion date of Social Security was moved forward 13 years. At this rate, the well will never run dry.
THINGS TO DO DURING THE BAD TIMES
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN PILFERING & POLICY, CONS & CONCEPTS
MUCH OF WHAT goes in the Bush regime is not politics at all, but rather theft, prevarication, deception, bribery and similar offenses. There is a tendency, particularly in Washington, to turn everything into a policy matter even when it properly belongs on same page as holdups, murders and the like.
Avoid dignifying the despicable with acceptance that it is debatable. In rhetoric, analysis and approach, bear in mind that we're often not dealing with ideology or policy, but with thugs and thieves.
MORE THINGS TO DO DURING THE BAD TIMES
http://prorev.com/thingstodo.htm
WHERE'S BIN BEEN?
MAYBE IT'S BETTER NOT TO CATCH BIN LADEN
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1431539,00.html
TIMES, UK - The world may be better off if Osama Bin Laden remains at large, according to the Central Intelligence Agency's recently departed executive director. If the world's most wanted terrorist is captured or killed, a power struggle among his Al-Qaeda subordinates may trigger a wave of terror attacks, said AB "Buzzy" Krongard, who stepped down six weeks ago as the CIA's third most senior executive.
"You can make the argument that we're better off with him (at large)," Krongard said. "Because if something happens to Bin Laden, you might find a lot of people vying for his position and demonstrating how macho they are by unleashing a stream of terror."
Krongard, a former investment banker who joined the CIA in 1998, said Bin Laden's role among Islamic militants was changing. "He's turning into more of a charismatic leader than a terrorist mastermind," he said. "Some of his lieutenants are the ones to worry about."
Krongard, 68, said he viewed Bin Laden "not as a chief executive but more like a venture capitalist." He added: "Let's say you and I want to blow up Trafalgar Square. So we go to Bin Laden. And he'll say, 'Well, here's some money and some passports and if you need weapons, see this guy'.
Several US officials have privately admitted that it may be better to keep Bin Laden pinned down on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than make him a martyr or put him on trial. But Krongard is the most senior figure to acknowledge publicly that his capture might prove counter-productive.
HEALTH & SCIENCE
BRITISH DOCTORS RECOMMENDING READING FOR MENTAL PROBLEMS
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1386199,00.html
ANUSHKA ASTHANA, OBSERVER, UK - Doctors usually send patients to the pharmacy to get medication, but from tomorrow GPs in one county will be packing people off to the library with prescriptions for self-help books. Those with symptoms of depression, anxiety or eating disorders will be referred to clinics where they will be prescribed books to read alongside support sessions with graduate mental health care workers.
The scheme in Devon, which is the first of its kind in the UK, aims to cut waiting lists for more serious cases, reduce over-prescription of drugs and offer some form of treatment for patients who may otherwise receive none.
Paul Farrand, a senior lecturer in health psychology at Plymouth University, who developed the scheme [said] 'Nine out of 10 people with mild or moderate depression do not receive any treatment at all. Others are put on long waiting lists or are given medication that may be unnecessary.' . . .
By the summer there will be 80 self-help clinics in Devon, all using books based on cognitive behavioural therapy. 'This is not for those with chronic problems,' said Farrand. 'But it could reduce waiting lists for those patients to receive the treatment they desperately need.'
EDITED BY SAM SMITH
Since 1964, Washington's most unofficial source
E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com
WORD
Cops is a race all their own -- Easy Rawlins
PAGE ONE MUST
FEDERAL JUDGE SAYS COPS CAN PUT SECRET GPS ON YOUR CAR WITHOUT WARRANT
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?category=REGIONOTHER&storyID=322152&BCCode=&newsdate=1/11/2005
BRENDAN LYONS, ALBANY TIMES UNION - In a decision that could dramatically affect criminal investigations nationwide, a federal judge has ruled police didn't need a warrant when they attached a satellite tracking device to the underbelly of a car being driven by a suspected Hells Angels operative. The ruling by U.S. District Judge David N. Hurd clears the way for a federal trial scheduled to begin next month in Utica in which seven alleged Hells Angels members and associates, including several from the Capital Region, face drug-trafficking charges.
The use of satellite tracking devices has stirred controversy and Hurd's ruling differs from a decision last spring by a Nassau County Court judge, who decided police needed a warrant when they used the technology to follow a burglary suspect. . .
Hurd opined that authorities wouldn't need a warrant had they decided to follow Moran, so using a GPS device was merely a simpler way to track his car "as it traveled on the public highways," he wrote. "Moran had no expectation of privacy in the whereabouts of his vehicle on a public roadway. Thus, there was no search or seizure and no Fourth Amendment implications in the use of the GPS device."
Hurd's ruling follows a line of reasoning that's widely supported by many law enforcement agencies. Police contend using tracking devices is no different than if they followed a suspect's vehicle in their own cars or by using helicopters.
Kevin Mulroy, Moran's attorney, said the issue, which has brought conflicting rulings across the nation, is unsettling. "I think it's something the Supreme Court of the United States is going to have to hear," said Mulroy, a Syracuse attorney who was formerly an Onondaga County Court judge and assistant prosecutor. "One would think that before the police could install devices on your property, to monitor your movements, they would need a court order."
A similar controversy arose in Washington two years ago, when that state's Supreme Court determined police had the right to attach a satellite tracking device to a murder suspect's car, but only after obtaining a warrant.
POLITICS
HOW THE DEMOCRATS LOST THE ELECTION
http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/01/the_democratic_.html
DOUG IRELAND, DIRELAND - The National Journal's Daily Poll Track yesterday brought news of a new national survey that ought to make Democrats disgusted with the leadership of their party sit up and take notice:
"Television advertising alone cost more than a billion and a half dollars in 2004, but who exactly was supposed to get the message?," asked the Journal. "A new Annenberg survey found that only 15 percent of voters considered voting for the other presidential candidate at any point in the election cycle. Supporters of President Bush and John Kerry were statistically even: Eighty-four percent of Bush voters and 85 percent of Kerry voters said there was never a time they thought they would cast ballots for the other candidate."
"Quoting Annenberg political director Adam Clymer, the survey's analysis suggests the results 'vindicated a campaign strategy of playing to the base and spending relatively less time and money on undecided voters or soft supporters of the other candidate,' adding that Clymer thinks 'the Bush campaign was especially skillful at implementing that strategy.'" That is, if anything, an understatement and ignores how the Democratic campaign did just the opposite. . .
And who was responsible for the failed Democratic strategy? Why, the overpaid Democratic consultants whom Kerry hired, one layer after another, as he flailed about trying to get traction with the electorate. . .[As I wrote] "These millionaire media goniffs and Clintonista off-year whores for Corporate America, to whom Kerry is now listening, are themselves deaf to the wails of distress coming from those Democrats in the battleground states who have been begging for a bold Kerry economic attack on Bush, which they see as the only way of having a prayer of defeating this war president by mobilizing the victims of the Bush economy and energizing the desultory Democratic base." . . .
Now, in the latest issue of the Washington Monthly, Amy Sullivan - in a first-rate broadside entitled "Fire the Consultants," has provided a damning bill of indictment against these guns for hire, "a clique of Washington consultants who, through their insider ties, continue to get rewarded with business even after losing continually."
Among those who fall under Sullivan's scalpel are two of this overpaid tribe who were most responsible for Kerry's failed strategy: Bob Shrum, his media man and message guru. . . Sullivan sniffs that Shrummy "has no genius for strategy and very little feel for what makes Middle America tick"; and Mark Mellman, who--as Kerry's pollster--urged him to stay away from attacking Bush. "Mellman," Sullivan justly writes, "is popular among Democrats because he tells them what they so desperately want to hear: Their policies are sound, Americans really agree with them more than with Republicans, and if they just repeat their mantras loud enough, voters will eventually embrace the party...."
In a party bereft of new ideas, Sullivan points out, "The consultants are filling a vacuum. After all, someone has to formulate the message that a candidate can use to win the voters' support."
WHO'S BUYING ACCESS TO BUSH
ASSOCIATED PRESS - The team collecting private donations to finance President George W. Bush's inaugural festivities has taken in $18 million, putting it nearly halfway to its goal of at least $40 million. . . The latest donors include Cinergy Corp, an energy company whose businesses include electric and natural gas distribution in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. . . Other new $250,000 underwriters include AT&T; Bank of America; Bristol-Myers Squibb Co; United Parcel Service San Diego Chargers owner Alex Spanos; American Financial Group of Cincinnati and one of its top executives, Carl H. Lindner [Ed. Note: of Chiquita Banana fame]; New Energy Corp. of South Bend, Indiana; Thomas Stephenson, a partner in Sequoia Capital in Atherton, California; and Maryland-based Strongbow Technologies Corp.
Several new contributors gave $100,000 to become inaugural "sponsors," a level of giving that also includes tickets to an array of events leading up to and including the inauguration at the Capitol on January 20. Those include the Pepsi-Cola Co.; Tyson Foods; Goldman-Sachs Group Inc. California Farm Bureau Federation; Titus Electrical Contracting of Austin, Texas; Hunting Engineering Co. of Bridgeton, Missouri; Intervest Construction of Daytona Beach, Florida; and Computer Associates International of Islandia, New York.
SOCIAL SECURITY
MISSING POINTS IN THE SOCIAL SECURITY DEBATE
SAM SMITH - Listening to some of the liberals leading the fight to save Social Security brings to mind how out of practice Democrats are in fighting for the things that created their modern party. And how much is not being discussed in this controversy.
Here are a few points that should be stressed and aren't:
1. While it would be nice to keep the trust fund in balance, ultimately there is no reason why Social Security should be terminally imprisoned in a trust fund while homeland security and national security, for example, aren't. The Pentagon would have gone broke years ago if it had to live by the same rules as Social Security. It is, in the end, a matter of how we want to spend our money: killing Iraqis or taking care of senior Americans.
2. Seniors are only one part of the mostly non-working portion of the American economy. The other big part is children. Together they make up something called the dependent population. If you're going to panic you better add up both costs. Here's something interesting you find when you do: In 1960, the dependent population of the U.S. - children and old people - was 45%. By 2020 it will be 40%.
3. The fact that the federal government may have to refill the Social Trust fund's coffers in 2018 or whenever isn't Social Security's fault; it's the federal government's. As Gene Lyon put it: "Here's what . . . Bush and the think tank spokesmen actually mean when they say Social Security's going broke: They mean that the trust fund has been looted fair and square, that everybody who's been paying those increased payroll taxes since 1983 has been successfully swindled and that the U.S. government need not honor those special issue Treasury bonds." "As David Sarasohn of The Oregonian recently noted, each and every special-issue bond in the Social Security Trust Fund bears the following inscription: 'The bond is supported by the full faith and credit of the United States, and the United States is pledged to the payment of the bond with respect to both principal and interest.'"
Blaming Social Security for what the federal government did with the money it borrowed is like blaming Citibank because you used this month's mortgage payment on a new computer. It doesn't compute.
4. If things are as bad as the trustees think in their projection of the economy then you probably don't want to invest in the stock market.
5. There are plenty of ways to add money to the trust fund. Like increasing the cap so that rich advocates of privatization have to pay more into Social Security.
6. As a percent of GDP, the increased cost of Social Security over the next 75 years will be less than increased education spending between 1946 and 1966 or about the same as the increase in Social Security taxes between 1960 and 1995.
7. The Social Security trustees keep changing their projections notes the Economic Policy Institute. In the 8 years between 1996 and 2004, the depletion date of Social Security was moved forward 13 years. At this rate, the well will never run dry.
THINGS TO DO DURING THE BAD TIMES
DISTINGUISH BETWEEN PILFERING & POLICY, CONS & CONCEPTS
MUCH OF WHAT goes in the Bush regime is not politics at all, but rather theft, prevarication, deception, bribery and similar offenses. There is a tendency, particularly in Washington, to turn everything into a policy matter even when it properly belongs on same page as holdups, murders and the like.
Avoid dignifying the despicable with acceptance that it is debatable. In rhetoric, analysis and approach, bear in mind that we're often not dealing with ideology or policy, but with thugs and thieves.
MORE THINGS TO DO DURING THE BAD TIMES
http://prorev.com/thingstodo.htm
WHERE'S BIN BEEN?
MAYBE IT'S BETTER NOT TO CATCH BIN LADEN
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1431539,00.html
TIMES, UK - The world may be better off if Osama Bin Laden remains at large, according to the Central Intelligence Agency's recently departed executive director. If the world's most wanted terrorist is captured or killed, a power struggle among his Al-Qaeda subordinates may trigger a wave of terror attacks, said AB "Buzzy" Krongard, who stepped down six weeks ago as the CIA's third most senior executive.
"You can make the argument that we're better off with him (at large)," Krongard said. "Because if something happens to Bin Laden, you might find a lot of people vying for his position and demonstrating how macho they are by unleashing a stream of terror."
Krongard, a former investment banker who joined the CIA in 1998, said Bin Laden's role among Islamic militants was changing. "He's turning into more of a charismatic leader than a terrorist mastermind," he said. "Some of his lieutenants are the ones to worry about."
Krongard, 68, said he viewed Bin Laden "not as a chief executive but more like a venture capitalist." He added: "Let's say you and I want to blow up Trafalgar Square. So we go to Bin Laden. And he'll say, 'Well, here's some money and some passports and if you need weapons, see this guy'.
Several US officials have privately admitted that it may be better to keep Bin Laden pinned down on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan rather than make him a martyr or put him on trial. But Krongard is the most senior figure to acknowledge publicly that his capture might prove counter-productive.
HEALTH & SCIENCE
BRITISH DOCTORS RECOMMENDING READING FOR MENTAL PROBLEMS
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1386199,00.html
ANUSHKA ASTHANA, OBSERVER, UK - Doctors usually send patients to the pharmacy to get medication, but from tomorrow GPs in one county will be packing people off to the library with prescriptions for self-help books. Those with symptoms of depression, anxiety or eating disorders will be referred to clinics where they will be prescribed books to read alongside support sessions with graduate mental health care workers.
The scheme in Devon, which is the first of its kind in the UK, aims to cut waiting lists for more serious cases, reduce over-prescription of drugs and offer some form of treatment for patients who may otherwise receive none.
Paul Farrand, a senior lecturer in health psychology at Plymouth University, who developed the scheme [said] 'Nine out of 10 people with mild or moderate depression do not receive any treatment at all. Others are put on long waiting lists or are given medication that may be unnecessary.' . . .
By the summer there will be 80 self-help clinics in Devon, all using books based on cognitive behavioural therapy. 'This is not for those with chronic problems,' said Farrand. 'But it could reduce waiting lists for those patients to receive the treatment they desperately need.'
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