News From The Progressive States Of America

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"It appears the parents of Terri Schiavo have run out of options.

The Supreme Court declined to intervene, thus representing the 10th

legal judgment in favor of Mrs. Schiavo's husband and guardian,

Michael -- meaning the Schiavo feeding tube will soon be removed from

the cable news networks." --Jon Stewart

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The Battle Over Terri Schiavo's Feeding Tube... or is it?

Explaining the Media Frenzy

(If you want to read the full story you may have to paste this url into your

browser.)

Not every "human interest" story elicits media reaction, let alone a

media frenzy. Professor Laurie King-Irani contrasts the case of Schiavo

with that of Rachel Corrie who was killed two years ago in Gaza. One

woman is the focus of a frenzy, the other of media neglect; in one case,

the name has become a household word, the name of the other is

barely known.

So, the question arises as to why the Schiavo case has received such

extreme attention. The legal dispute between Schiavo's parents and her

husband and the nature of the issue merited public debate but the

intervention of the George W. Bush/Karl Rove team elevated it to

national level.

The simple fact that President Bush decided to sign papers which had

been submitted to Congress on this issue guaranteed that it would be

the focus of attention. Furthermore, once Congress was notified, it acted

at unprecedented speed.

Secondly, the Schiavo media frenzy emerged around Friday, March 18,

2005, on the eve of the second anniversary of the commencement of the

US-Iraq war. A round of war anniversary stories would feature extensive

coverage of stories about the number of dead, the cost, the prisoner

abuse scandal and the continuing instability in Iraq.

The Bush administration's focus on the Schiavo case ensured that the

president's "pro-life" actions came to the fore and swamped potentially

adverse coverage of Iraq. It was also a pro-active attempt by Bush to

regain control of the political and media agenda after being on the

defensive for much of the year over controversies including the

Armstrong Williams scandal, the Jeff Gannon saga and the use of

government-funded video news releases.

However, what may have been an opportunistic attempt to rebuild

political momentum appears to have backfired. The latest CNN poll

revealed a slump in Bush's approval ratings from 52% in a poll taken

over the weekend of March 19-20 to 45% on Thursday March 24. A CBS

poll had Bush's rating dropping from 49% to 43%. Aside from the

Schiavo case other factors could be fuel price increases and the

controversy over Social Security privatization.

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"Vice President Dick Cheney got a big pay raise last week. He was only

making 53 dollars a barrel this week he's making 57 dollars a barrel."

--Jay Leno

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Whose Security? What Social Security Means to Children and Families

Social Security is the single largest program that provides support to

American children. It is also the primary, if not the only, source of life and

disability insurance for many U.S. families, especially those headed by

younger workers. The program is responsible for keeping many middle-

and low-income children from falling into poverty when a parent dies or

becomes disabled. One in 15 beneficiaries of Social Security is a child under 18 (over 5

million children).

3.1 million children under the age of 18 receive benefits because a

parent died, retired, or can no longer work because of a disability.

2 million children under the age of 18 live in households where at least

one adult is receiving Social Security benefits.

On average, Social Security comprises 43% of total income for the

families of child beneficiaries.

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"It was reported today the United States Marine Corps is having

difficulty meeting their recruiting quotas. ... in fact the new slogan is 'The

Few, The Fewer, The Marines.'" --Conan O'Brien

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FEC Weighs Limited Internet Activity Rules

By Siobhan McDonough

The Associated Press

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The Federal Election Commission took its first step Thursday in

extending campaign finance controls to political activity on the Internet,

asking for public input on limited regulations for the freewheeling

medium.

Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, who took the lead on drafting

proposals with vice chairman Michael Toner, described the steps as

"restrained." The commission emphasized a hands-off approach to

bloggers, or authors of Web logs, among the loudest and unruliest

voices online.

"We are not the speech police," said Weintraub, a Democrat. "The FEC

does not tell private citizens what they can or cannot say, on the Internet,

or elsewhere."

The draft guidelines suggest applying limits that exist in other media to

certain political advertising on the Web and political spam e-mail.

The six-member commission approved a work in progress and invited

public comment for 60 days before a June hearing. Republican David

Mason was the sole dissenter.

The commission said it was exploring Internet regulation reluctantly -

ordered to do so by a court - and with the lightest touch possible,

exempting everything except certain kinds of paid political advertising.

But the Center for Individual Freedom, a nonprofit advocacy group, said

any regulation is too much.

"No matter how innocuous the proposal may appear on the surface,

these rules still represent the government's first foray into regulating the

Internet, and the draft raises the very real possibility that the final rules

may be much more extensive," said Reid Cox, the group's general

counsel.

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Congress today conducted an under cover investigation of steroids in

baseball. Their conclusion -- the Chicago Cubs are just months away

from getting nuclear weapons." --Craig Ferguson

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Let's not get personal

A new study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

suggests that young Americans don't like it when the president gets

personal.

In a national survey of people ages 18-29 just 49% favor "private

accounts" while 25% are opposed, and nearly as many (26%) say they

don!=t know how they feel about the issue.

That's down dramatically from February, when 66% of young people

favored private accounts and 19% opposed.

Additionally, finds the survey, "general opposition to the plan to allow

private accounts is much higher among people who have heard a lot

about it than among those who are less familiar with it."

Overall, people who have heard a lot about the plan oppose it by

52%-41%, while those who have heard little or nothing favor it by a 47%

to 30% margin. So it's true: what you don't know can hurt you.

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"Condoleezza Rice made her last stop in her foreign trip, she was in

Beijing. ... They went nuts for her. From their reaction you would think

people in China had never seen Rice before." --Jay Leno

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Jimmy Carter to Chair Election Reform Commission

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former President Jimmy Carter will lead a

bipartisan commission to examine problems with the U.S. election

system, American University's Center for Democracy and Election

Management said on Thursday.

Carter, a Democrat whose Carter Center has monitored more than 50

elections around the world, will co-chair the private commission with

Republican James Baker, who served as Secretary of State under

President George H. W. Bush.

Former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat who lost his

seat in the 2004 election, will also participate.

"I am concerned about the state of our electoral system and believe we

need to improve it," Carter said in a statement. He said the group will

assess "issues of inclusion" in federal voting and propose

recommendations to improve the process.

"We will try to define an electoral system for the 21st century that will

make Americans proud again," he said.

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"There is a 24-hour surveillance team monitoring Martha Stewart's

whereabouts. Nothing yet on al Qaeda." --David Letterman

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Health Savings Accounts Hurt Poor, Care - Report

By Kim Dixon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Health plans with high patient-paid deductibles,

embraced by many Republicans as a market-based solution to quell

soaring medical-care costs, lead to poorer quality care and increasing

patient debt, a study released last month said.

With the new plans, individuals typically pay the first $1000, or $2000 for

families, spent on medical care each year. The plans are coupled with

so-called health savings accounts, or HSAs, which allow patients to set

aside tax-free funds to defray health expenses.

But a survey of data from 4,000 adults with health insurance found that

about half of patients with a high-deductible plan racked up medical

debt and were faced with other billing woes, compared with 31 percent

of those with more traditional health plans, according to the research

group Commonwealth Fund, which studies health policy issues.

"Health savings accounts coupled with high-deductible health plans

have potential pitfalls, especially for families with low incomes or

individuals with chronic disease," said Karen Davis, president of the

foundation, which studies health policy. "The evidence is that increased

patient cost-sharing leads to under use of appropriate care."

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No. 1?

America by the numbers

by Michael Ventura

What follows are excerpts the whole article can be found at:

No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than

the

notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media

are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name

"America

Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing

political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled

"un-American.

" We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a

manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from

its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable.

We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live

in:

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times,

Dec. 12, 2004).

The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical

literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen

percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The

Week,

Jan. 7, 2005).

"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with

less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of

the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The

European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing

the American Dream, p.78).

"The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and

engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D)

expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

"Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest

producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).

Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation.

The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec.

21, 2004).

The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in

terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the

fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United

States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in

the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots

less.

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the

world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The

European Dream, p.80).

Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary

American

deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.)

(NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

"U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the

developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream,

p.81).

Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S.

households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed

themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at

some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores

higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than

in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead

last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the

1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew

only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European

Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other

industrialized country, and get less vacation time.

In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the

world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In

engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are

European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American

engineering and construction company is included among the world's

top nine competitors.

In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European

giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world.

In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are

first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten.

Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).

The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade

(CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).

U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14,

2005).

Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of

unemployment

insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are

jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).

Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our

government

debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage

rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and

little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec.

4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because

they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the

world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's

largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco.

Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer.

(Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear

record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT,

Dec. 12, 2004).

As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT,

Dec. 12, 2004).

"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on

movies,

videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream,

p.28).

"Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get

what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified,

according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last

year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

"The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by

the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have

left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

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