3:00 PM
Electoral Dysfunction 2.0
After Florida wrongly purged eligible voters from its rolls in 2000, several media organizations decided to follow up on how the state had fixed the problem this time around. But as they learned Thursday, little has changed.
In response to a media-led lawsuit filed in June, Circuit Judge Nikki Ann Clark overuled a state law that prevented the release of the state's controversial list of 47,763 suspected felons. Clark cited the state constitution as ensuring the viewing of public records as a fundamental right:
"Whether the public chooses to inspect or copy [the list] is not the choice of the governmental agency which has custody of the record. It is the choice of the person who has requested access."
After thus inspecting the names on the list, newspapers found what many have long suspected - thousands of voters who shouldn't be listed, with about three times as many Democrats as Republicans cited.
The Miami Herald (registration required) conducted a further investigation of the list and found that 2,119 listed citizens - 62 percent of them Democrats and only 20 percent Republicans - had their rights to vote formally restored by the state's clemency process and should not be listed.
But getting them off the list and back onto the voting rolls falls to local officials, a complicated process described in the Herald:
All county elections supervisors are required to investigate each voter on the list, verify whether or not he or she is eligible to vote, then notify by mail suspected felons who have not had their civil rights restored. The certified letter is supposed to name a time and place voters can appear to explain why they should remain on the rolls. If supervisors suspect the letters were not received, they're supposed to publish at least one notice in the local newspaper. If there's no response within 30 days, supervisors must remove the person from the rolls.
The paper interviewed a number of people on the list already granted clemency, and said none of them had yet received such a letter. And convictions need not be recent for someone to show up on the list. The Herald found it includes Mary Catherine Lane (arrested for robbery as an 18-year-old in 1972), Roger Maddox (granted clemency in 1977 after a theft conviction four years earlier), and Vietnam vet Walter Gibbons (granted clemency in 1978 after a drug possession conviction):
I don't think it's fair that they're trying to stop me from voting, because everybody that commits a crime does not stay a criminal. I had my error in life, but that was a long time ago, over 30 years now, and I'm a different person.
With so many potential problems in Florida just four months until election day, it's no wonder nine U.S. House members wrote to the United Nations Friday in the hope of getting U.N. observers to monitor the Nov. 2 election. The letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan invoked a June 2001 report by the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that concluded many Florida voters were wrongfully disenfranchised. In the letter, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) wrote:
As lawmakers, we must assure the people of America that our nation will not experience the nightmare of the 2000 presidential election. This is the first step in making sure that history does not repeat itself.
If the Herald investigation is any indication, a lot more steps will be needed before that wish becomes a reality.
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9:47 AM
Grading the Governator
Arnold Schwarzenegger may have word-wide fame from his Terminator days, a primetime spot at this year's Republican Convention, and a proposed constitutional amendment which would enable the Austrian-born icon to run for president, but what he really wants is a state budget. And it doesn't look like either party in California is ready to play along.
For the eighth time in ten years, the California legislature has missed the deadline for passing the budget. It was a blow for Schwarzenegger, who has effectively weilded his popularity to force a series of compromise measures through the state capitol. But while Republicans and Democrats alike have caved to Arnoldmania on issues past, the governor is having real difficulty pulling a budget bill through the political morass.
Not that everyone is terribly worried. Like Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton:
"Once again, the Legislature has failed to fulfill its duty. And this time, it doesn't matter a whit.Something else has been happening that's more important than an on-time budget. These legislators actually are getting along - with each other and the governor. The venomous rhetoric has been muted.
Yes, they're missing their deadline. Indeed, they're pushing off their toughest budget decisions into future years. California has a thicket of other complex problems - energy, water, land use, transportation - that the politicians also have been sidestepping. But we shouldn't get too hung up about any of that, for now at least.
In short, California may not have a budget, but least the legislators are not strangling each other, or threatening the governor with a recall. And in Sacramento, we suppose that should be considered progress.
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12:25 PM
Ralph the Terrible?
Back in February, I wrote how many of Ralph Nader's onetime political supporters were walking away from the independent candidate, distressed by his decision to run in 2004. As Lisa Chamberlain writes in Salon, that sort of estrangement is an established thread in Nader's professional and political life.
Portraying Nader as an ego-driven and dictatorial boss, Chamberlain says the iconic activist "has inspired almost no loyalty and instead has alienated many of his closest associates."
Dozens of people who have worked with or for Nader over the decades have had bitter ruptures with the man they once respected and admired. The level of acrimony is so widespread and acute that it's impossible to dismiss those involved as disgruntled former employees, disillusioned leftists or self-seeking turncoats. Usually it was Nader himself who ratcheted up what was often just a parting of ways into professional warfare and vitriolic personal attacks.
So, are the angry sentiments expressed in Chamberlain's piece anything more than sour grapes spiced with lingering resentment from the 2000 vote? It's a reasonable question. One thing is clear, however. The high-profile former Nader confidants Chamberlain interviews aren't partisan demagogues or Democratic hit-men. They are people, like former Congressman Toby Moffett, who have seen both sides of Nader. Like the others, Moffett, a onetime consumer advocate, claims that Nader's ego and all-or-nothing approach make it virtually impossible to remain an ally for long.
"He has no interest in being a constructive part of anything," continues Moffett. "No one can name a coalition he has been in where he really rolled his sleeves up and tried to get [something] done. He's shown no interest in anything that could be construed as incremental change."
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11:45 AM
Cheney's Bronx Cheer
Opposing ballplayers know better than to expect a warm welcome when they take the field at Yankee Stadium. The Bronx Bombers' fans have always been among the most ... direct ... in the majors. And now Dick Cheney knows what it feels like to attract the fans' attention.
As the New York Times reported Wednesday, the vice president attended Tuesday's game between the Red Sox and Yankees -- a matchup that never disappoints in terms of fan intensity. During the seventh-inning singing of "God Bless America," an image of Cheney appeared on the scoreboard, and was promptly greeted with boos (at which point the Yankees took Cheney's picture off the screen to placate the masses).
Elsewhere in Cheneyland, the vice president gets hammered by Sen. Joe Biden in a new Rolling Stone piece, in which he told George Bush he should fire Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld:
I was in the Oval Office the other day, and the president asked me what I would do about resignations. I said, 'Look, Mr. President, would I keep Rumsfeld? Absolutely not.' And I turned to Vice President Cheney, who was there, and I said, 'Mr. Vice President, I wouldn't keep you if it weren't constitutionally required.' I turned back to the president and said, 'Mr. President, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are bright guys, really patriotic, but they've been dead wrong on every major piece of advice they've given you. That's why I'd get rid of them, Mr. President -- not just Abu Ghraib.'
Joe Biden might be wise to learn from Pat Leahy and avoid talking to Cheney next time he shows up at the Senate. Maybe he catch a Bronx-bound 4 train to Yankee Stadium, instead. After all, getting cussed at while watching a ballgame has to be more fun than getting cussed at in your workplace. And at least Biden can claim to really care about the national passtime. Along with Sen. John McCain, he's been leading the Congressional push to force the Major Leagues to come up with a comprehensive policy for fighting performance-enhancing drugs.
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3:35 PM
The GOP's 'moderate' proposal
A disturbing one-sentence item popped up in Roll Call a few days ago:
Senate Republican leaders are considering granting Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) more power over committee assignments, a tool which would allow him to reward loyal Senators and punish wayward Republicans who fail to toe the party line.
Here's the deal: If John Kerry is elected president, he's going to face a bitter and highly cohesive Republican Congress. Even if the Democrats also manage to win back the Senate, they will certainly need to compromise with moderate Republicans like Lincoln Chafee and Olympia Snowe. The results will be muddled, and we liberals may not like it, but it's the only way Democrats will have a prayer of rolling back the deficits, inching through some sort of health care plan, and fixing the mess in Washington.
But now Frist wants to stonewall any possibility of compromise, making sure that all his little duckies fall in line, or else. Part of this has comes from frustration over the fact that his party can't even pass a budget (too many fiscally responsible Republican moderates causing trouble). But it also reflects a larger GOP strategy to create one-party dominance by making sure all its members vote in lockstep and don't so much as think about cutting deals with the other party. (See here for more on this.)
How should the Democrats respond? Recently, in The American Prospect, Mary Lynn Jones suggested that if and when the Dems return to power, they should retaliate in kind, cutting out Republicans from the decision-making process altogether. But a better strategy might be to reach out to those embattled moderates who are sick and tired of the GOP's iron-fisted rule. It could end up splitting the Republican party in two, and put a permanent end to Congressional strongmen like Frist and Tom DeLay.
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3:30 PM
We have to clean up, too?
The Pentagon has a toxic waste problem. That fact is hardly news -- Mother Jones contributor Jon R. Luoma described late last year how the military has long pushed to exempt itself from the nation's environmental laws. And there are plenty of folks on Capitol Hill eager to give the Pentagon the free pass it wants. But now, Congress' investigative arm is taking a swipe at the military for its lack of progress on hazardous pollution.
A new report from the General Accounting office claims the Pentagon has failed to produce a plan for cleaning up military munitions waste at more than 10,000 ranges across the country, and has based what plans it has on unrealistic cost estimates.
Department of Defense does not have a comprehensive policy requiring sampling or cleanup on operational ranges for the more than 200 chemicals associated with military munitions ... the DOD has issued sampling policies but cannot assure funding is provided for such sampling.
It's well known that munitions contain a range of healthy elements -- lead, TNT and ammonium perchlorate -- that are suspected of causing damage to the central and peripheral nervous system, cancer and thyroid problems. According to the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group , "for fetuses, infants and children, disruptions in thyroid hormone levels [caused by perchlorate] can cause lowered IQ, mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, and motor skill deficit." Which is why, back in 2002, the DOD was requested to develop an estimate of clean-up costs. Those estimates, released in April 2003, ranged from $16 billion to $165 billion and are, according to the GAO, "questionable."
Why the bizarre range in estimates? Well, Sonya Lunder, an analyst for EWG, had this to say to the Los Angeles Daily News: "An effective way to stall progress and to stall cleanup is to tell everybody that it's going to cost an incredible amount of money." Makes sense. After all, as Anu Mittal, the leading GAO investigator on the report, notes, "We're not quite sure what the purpose of giving something to Congress that's so questionable really is. You're giving something to lawmakers they can't use."
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12:00 PM
What's in a name?
The names of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein will live on for generations to come, even in Jordan.
The country's parliament on Wednesday defeated a bill that would have allowed the government to prevent parents from giving their children names "harmful to the public order."
The amendment to the country's Civic Status Law didn't specify any potentially harmful names but, the Associated Press reports, "the government made clear in the parliamentary debate the names of al-Qaida leader bin Laden or Saddam, the ousted Iraqi dictator, would not be permitted."
But the legislature rejected the measure by a 50-38 -- the second time it has blocked the amendment. As legislator Mohammed Shawabkeh explained, "The bill does not implement democracy, and there is no law in the whole world which restricts the freedom of naming newborns."
He's right. Parents in scores of countries are free to give their offspring any names they choose. The only bar on baby-naming in the U.S., naturally enough, is common sense and decency. Which explains why 'Adolph' is still never heard on American playgrounds.
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11:25 AM
The next book-cooking scam
Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco. The list of book-cooking companies goes on and on. But who's next? And, just as importantly, what will their scam be?
Three economists have tackled that thorny question in a new study examining how executives are manipulating company pension funds in order to boost stock prices.
Basically, the authors write, the latest scheme works like this:
Corporations boost earnings projections by assuming that their pension assets will generate a high rate of return. How do they estimate higher rates of return? Simple! They stuff retirement portfolios full of risky stocks. By gambling the pension fund on high-risk, high-return investments, managers can forecast higher earnings, even though those earnings may never materialize. Siunce Wall Street rarely bothers to look at pension portfolios in assessing a company's fiscal health, the inflated earnings forecasts usually translate into higher stock prices. Mission accomplished. But at what price?
Needless to say, CEOs can earn lavish rewards for "boosting" stock price, and managers are most likely to manipulate earnings in this way when they can exercise hefty stock options. IBM's Lou Gerstner is cited as a particularly flagrant case, pocketing anywhere from $12 to $76 million after a little fund tweaking. Meanwhile, most observers (and ordinary retirees) were left wondering why the company's pension fund evaporated in 2002. Now we know.
The sad part is, even when these corporations do fritter away their retirement funds, the CEOs might never have to face the consequences. Remember, back in 2002, after the Enron accounting fiasco, some administration officials-most notably Paul O'Neill-wanted to make executives liable for "negligence" or "recklessness" (Inflating stock prices with rickety pension funds might well fall under this category). But after a loud corporate hue and cry, President Bush nixed the proposal. And for that, the next generation of Enrons thank him kindly. As for the employees of that next generation of Enrons...
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4:39 PM
Back in action
Not only will American troops in Iraq be there well after Monday's handover of sovereignty -- they'll be getting some reinforcements. The Pentagon announced Tuesday that the army will call up about 5,600 civilians who'd already left active duty.
These troops are part of the Individual Ready Reserve, meaning they have already served their full terms, but less than the eight-year obligation the military can legally enforce. Unlike other Reserves, they do not perform military service during the year, and only get paid if called up. This will be the first time IRR troops have been called up since the eve of the 1991 Gulf War. As military analyst Dan Goure told the Associated Press:
"This was inevitable when it became clear that we would have to maintain significant combat forces in Iraq for a period of years…. It is a reflection of the fact that the (active-duty) military is too small for the breadth of challenges we are facing."
Involuntary callups will start in July and run through December, and will apply to former troops with skills in need areas such as transportation, medical specialists and military police.
The Army Times reports the army has updated its list of 118,000 IRR civilians, and will announce the specifics of the callups Wednesday morning. About 2,000 IRR troops are already serving in Iraq after volunteering, but "some of the civilians complained to Army Times that strong-arm tactics were used to get them to volunteer. Army officials said that approach was wrong, the result of overzealous recruiters and retention soldiers."
Much as been made about how extending existing tours of duty constitutes a "back-door draft." Now that's expanding to thousands of soldiers who thought they were coming home for good.
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4:29 PM
Putin vs. the oil-garchy
One can’t blame the casual observer for thinking that the Russian government is out to destroy the oil giant Yukos. This week, a Moscow court ordered the company to pay $3.4 billion in back-taxes, a ruling that Yukos officials insist will bankrupt the company. So far, investors have been calm; Yukos stock fell by just three percent. So what’s going on?
In spite of the ruling and the fact that Yukos’ ex-CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky is facing charges of fraud and embezzlement, investors are banking on President Vladimir Putin’s insistence, that the government is not trying to destroy the country’s second-largest oil producer-- really. As Putin told reporters earlier this month:
I can say just one thing, Russian state officials and the government are not interested in a bankruptcy of such a company as Yukos…. Debt is the issue to be considered by courts and another issue is how they are being assessed. While these activities are unfolding, the government will try to prevent the company from collapsing.
Yukos should find out soon if Putin means business. Even though the company can appeal the court ruling, and has promised do so, the government can start seizing its assets in a matter of days. Yukos shareholders say they want to settle and offered an olive branch to the government, by appointing former Soviet central banker Viktor Gerashchenko -- no nemesis of the Kremilin -- as chairman of the company.
Before his arrest in October, Khodorkovsky was a major sponsor of parties and organizations opposing Putin and was even considered a prospective contender for the 2008 presidential elections. Putin was also unhappy with what he saw as Khodorkovsky’s effort to undermine the government’s energy policy. As Newsweek puts it:
In the past year the Kremlin has been reasserting control over a sector widely privatized after the fall of the Soviet Union; Putin is making it clear that energy decisions with foreign-policy consequences are not for businessmen to make. In the Kremlin's view, one of Khodorkovsky's great sins was to push for an oil pipeline from Siberia to China -- Russia's top security threat in Asia. Putin has scrapped that idea in favor of a more expensive and less commercially viable pipeline to Japan.
It is hard for most Russians to feel sorry for Khordorkovsky. Like all Russian oligarchs, he made his vast fortunte, estimated at some $15 billion dollars, during the “Wild West” privatization of state assets in the mid-1990s, when many Russians saw their meager savings vanish into thin air.
The problem with the government’s anti-corruption drive, however, is that it has been peculiarly selective. Khodorkovsky, in fact, has been credited with turning Yukos into one of the more transparent companies in Russia -- a country that does not count transparency as one of its strong points. While Khodorkovsky is no political dissident, he was targeted because he failed to heed Putin’s call for businessmen to keep their noses out of politics. Other oligarchs, who were either more timid -- or wiser-- than Khodorkovsky are going about enjoying their equally ill-gotten wealth in peace. At least for now.
With Yukos at its knees, shares belonging to the Menatep group, through which Khodorkovsky exercises his influence, will likely be sold to a more Putin-friendly investor -- if not the government itself. Then, the whole nasty tax-fight will be sorted out and Putin can take credit for saving Yukos and disciplining the oligarchs. As James Fenkner, of the Moscow-based Troika Dialog brokerage, told the Associated Press: "The market is still holding out for Putin to ride in on a white horse and save the day."
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3:45 PM
Blame Canada
For the past few weeks, it looked like Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin was on his way to getting the boot. His Conservative challenger, Stephen Harper, was leading the polls. Illegal multimillion-dollar payouts to Liberal Party-connected agencies in the 1990s, while Martin was finance minister, cast a cloud over the prime minister and his party. And the Bush administration stood to gain from a victory by Harper, who shares many of the president's positions -- a distinction
Ultimately, voters chose a country like Canada. And while Martin's Liberals failed to retain a majority they've held for a decade, they did win a plurality of seats in Parliament. That means Martin remains prime minister, though he will need to ally with smaller parties like the New Democratic Party or Quebec separatists to get his agenda through the legislature.
But winning even a minority government represented a major comeback for the Liberals. As one of Martin's strategists told the Los Angeles Times:
"It's been a tough six months. There was serious frustration with the Liberal Party after 10 years and with the sponsorship scandal. That's unmistakable. But it's also clear that Canada is not ready to embark on a conservative course."
That's bad news for American Republicans. Harper had publicly apologized for his country's unwillingness to join the war in Iraq, agreed to go along with the planned missile-defense system even if it involves space weapons, and supported Canada joining the U.S. in pulling out of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions. As the Boston Globe reported last week:
A Conservative government would be a boon for Bush, whose administration has been irked by Ottawa's refusal to support the war in Iraq; its insistence on loosening marijuana laws despite U.S. law enforcement concern about increased smuggling; its support for gay marriage; and its widely perceived unwillingness to tighten immigration and refugee rules.
Instead, Martin survived the scandal that gave Conservatives their best shot at leadership in years. And the agenda of America's northern neighbor might shift further leftward, as the Liberals will need the help of the far-left NDP to govern. Canada and the U.S. maintain the world's largest trade partnership, so Bush will have to continue working with Martin's government despite their strained relations. In the words of University of Toronto professor Mark Kingwell:
"There is a significant body of opinion that feels Canada has not been a good neighbor to the U.S. in recent years, and that the main task [of a new government] should be rebuilding ties. But there is also a large body of opinion that believes that Canada should seek to be a sort of moral counterweight to the U.S. and that Canadians should worry less about irritating Washington."
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3:30 PM
Toying with the law
“Imagine the fun of getting a phone call from Barbie!” Mattel’s web site hyperventilates. Now imagine the fun of getting a call from Barbie’s lawyers. That's what happened to Tom Forsythe in 1999 when Mattel sued him for copyright and trademark infringement. Forsythe had produced 78 photographs of Barbie in the "nude," occasionally posed in provocative positions with or in household appliances, as part of an exploration of "Barbie’s power as a beauty myth."
After five years of legal battling, the court ruled for Forsythe last Monday. Finding Mattel’s claims “unreasonable” and “frivolous” (PDF), a federal judge ordered Mattel to pay Forsythe $1.8 million in legal fees. The court explained: "…it appears Plaintiff forced Defendant into costly litigation to discourage him from using Barbie’s image in his artwork."
Forsythe’s victory is a landmark for artists fighting intellectual property laws that infringe on creative license. "This case sets a precedent," says www.illegal-art.org, a website devoted to freedom of expression in the corporate age, "…with luck, it’ll discourage corporations from using copyright law to make frivolous cases against artists." If the same restrictive laws imposed on contemporary art existed 60 years ago, we might be missing a crucial part of our artistic heritage. Illegal Art asks, Would we have collage, hip-hop or Pop Art?
Hence the importance of artists like Forsythe, willing to risk an encounter with corporate America for the sake of witty cultural critique. “I thought the pictures needed something that really said ‘crass consumerism,’ and to me, that’s Barbie,” Forsythe told the New York Times. “The doll is issued in every possible role you can imagine and comes with every possible accessory for each and every role.”
Barbie's versatility (and marketability) explains Mattel’s readiness to get rid of images that threaten her reputation. Or perhaps Forsythe’s photographs hit a little too close to home. Barbie has unrivalled sex appeal in the toy world, but when marketing it to young girls (or their parents), it’s probably best to keep that covered up. Even if “covered-up” means t-shirts that reveal Barbie’s itsy-bitsy waist or bikini tops that accentuate her impossibly outsized breasts.
Luckily Barbie has a man to protect her integrity. Today Mattel announced that four months after her February break-up with Ken, “Barbie is ready to date again.” Who will replace good ol' Ken? None other than “hot Australian hunk” Blaine, chosen by more than two million girls who voted online from a lineup of prospective suitors. Phew. Maybe Blaine can ease the psychological impact of finding out you're not just a classic icon of American beauty, you're fair game for Fair Use. After all, Mattel’s trademarked slogan puts it best: Barbie is “More than a doll.”
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1:48 PM
Zell-ective memory
Now that he's earned a plum speaking slot at this year's GOP Convention, Sen. Zell Miller (D-GA) is trying to counter the perception that he's betrayed his cause. I haven't changed at all, Zell insists, the Democratic party has. Really? Any chance then, that we'll get to hear another convention speech like this one? Here's Zell, circa 1992:
After my father's death, my mother with her own hands cleared a small piece of rugged land. Every day she waded into a neighbor's cold mountain creek, carrying out thousands of smooth stones to build a house. I grew up watching my mother complete that house from the rocks she'd lifted from the creek and cement she mixed in a wheelbarrow -- cement that today still bears her handprints. Her son bears her handprints, too. She pressed her pride and her hopes and her dreams deep into my soul.
So, you see, I know what Dan Quayle means when he says it's best for children to have two parents. You bet it is! And it would be nice for them to have trust funds, too. But we can't all be born rich, handsome and lucky... and that's why we have a Democratic Party.
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1:30 PM
The Ryan treatment
Last week, Republican Jack Ryan withdrew from the Illinois Senate race after a judge unsealed portions of his divorce records. Now, as Dan Kennedy of the Boston Phoenix writes, some conservatives (including the right-wing Illinois Leader newsletter and the infamous Drudge Report) are demanding the same treatment for John Kerry's divorce files:
Not to rely on Drudge, but does anyone doubt that the media and the Republicans would love to see Kerry's divorce records made public, just to find out what's in there?I have to admit that I hadn't paid much attention to the Ryan's case, other than to share everyone's amusement at the sex-club allegations. Until this morning, I hadn't realized they'd been released by a judge, Robert Schnider. Good Lord -- what was Schnider thinking? And of course, even though Schnider's ruling only pertains to his jurisdiction, it's going to be pretty easy to make the case that what's good for Ryan is good for Kerry."
What Schnider was thinking, as Slate's Brendan Koerner explains, was that American courts generally favor transparency, and the divorce files contained allegations made by Jeri Ryan during court proceedings:
In keeping with prior rulings nationwide, the court concluded that the public's right of access outweighed whatever emotional distress the unsealing might cause.To keep divorce records sealed, a defendant must prove that the release of the documents would cause objective harm to a concerned party, typically a juvenile. Indeed, the Ryans argued that salacious details of their case would damage their 9-year-old son. But the court ultimately concluded that only some of the documents contained information that might damage the child's psyche and unsealed the rest. Unfortunately for Ryan's campaign, the courts don't construe the disclosure of embarrassing sexual quirks as innately harmful.
Schnider's ruling does provide another in a string of precedents that could open Kerry's divorce files to the press -- and through it, the public -- in the event of a lawsuit. But while the contents of the Ryan file were generally suspected if unconfirmed by the press (and numerous web sites) for months, there haven't been any specific allegations about Kerry's divorce from Julia Thorne. In fact, Kerry's first wife has discussed the divorce publicly before, and remains a supporter of her ex-husband's political career.
Thorne has written two self-help books, including the coping-with-divorce 1996 publication A Change of Heart, in which she says life as a political wife became lonely and she suffered from depression, but doesn't blame Kerry for their relationship ending. She was interviewed by Douglas Brinkley for his Kerry biography, and a recent Newsweek piece discusses how proud Thorne is that her daughters are active in their father's campaign, and that she sometimes called Kerry after primary wins to congratulate him.
The fate of John Kerry's divorce files remains to be seen. But despite the "tit-for-tat" approach of his opponents, comparing Kerry to Jack Ryan is hardly a fair assumption at this point.
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11:15 AM
Pharma's last shot?
Is there a more insidious, more insatiable industry in America than the pharmaceutical industry? Read Marcia Angell's new essay in The New York Review of Books, titled "The Truth About Drug Companies" and decide for yourself. Angell nicely sums up the usual points. When drug companies whine that they need their high profits to invest in "research," they are lying. The industry is not particularly innovative, spending most of its money to market drugs that offer only small variations on existing drugs. ("No, no, but this form of Prozac can be taken weekly, you see?") As has been reported often by Mother Jones, drug companies are also guilty of abusing patents, bribing doctors for support, manipulating and suppressing clinical trials, and swamping Washington with its army of lobbyists.
The most intriguing bit from Angell's piece, however, is her contention that the drug lobby is facing a crisis. Most of its big, profit-making patents are set to expire in a few years:
Even worse is the fact that there are very few drugs in the pipeline ready to take the place of blockbusters going off patent. In fact, that is the biggest problem facing the industry today, and its darkest secret. All the public relations about innovation is meant to obscure precisely this fact. The stream of new drugs has slowed to a trickle, and few of them are innovative in any sense of that word. Instead, the great majority are variations of oldies but goodies -- "me-too" drugs.
Does this colossus, in fact, have clay feet? Is it set to topple? Angell suggests that to break the industry's lazy streak, the FDA should refuse to approve new drugs that offer only cosmetic changes to old drugs. If the drug companies want money to innovate, then they should start actually innovating. It's a great idea -- the only holdup is that the industry still has a stranglehold on Congress. Take a look at this newly released report from Public Citizen on how the industry used its influence to push through last year's disastrous Medicare bill. It's a fascinating case study of lobbying in action, but it also underscores how little change will come about unless something can be done about "the revolving door between the White House and K Street."
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