Airline crews going bonkers in flight – what’s up with that? Here are a couple of paranoid theories.

By now you’ve most assuredly read or heard that the pilot of a JetBlue aircraft went nuts enroute from New York to Las Vegas, had to be restrained by the passengers and other crew, and is now in Texas facing Federal charges for interfering with the crew, which presumably included himself.

Amusing, save that

A) the charge in effect says he was interfering with himself, among others, a felony that can result in a long prison sentence, and that

B) had things not  been handled as well as they were by the co-pilot, crew and passengers, we could be reading about a crashed Airbus and a lot of dead passengers.

But before we rush to throw the captain in the clink, let’s remember that he had an umblemished 12-year record with Jet Blue. And that pilots as a class have a deserved reputation for calm under situations of extreme stress. Sully Sullenberger isn’t the only one of his kind:

Uh, this is your captain speaking. Looks as if our landing gear somehow fell off sometime during flight. No need to get upset about this. We’re simply going detour a bit and fly over a big old glacier in Alaska and put ‘er down like a giant toboggan. Since we may be slipping and sliding on the ice for a while, I do strongly recommend you put your head between your knees, cover it with your arms, and  fasten your seat belts. I'll be having another chat with you folks just as soon as we put this big bird down and bring her to a stop.

So how does an airline captain suddenly go bonkers? It almost certainly wasn’t a case of his consciously making a decision to be a bad boy. One theory floated is that he forgot to take his meds – except that there’s no record that I’ve seen of his ever having been on meds.

Then, eerily, there was the American Airlines hostess who went similarly bonkers in flight earlier the same month. Go here, to listen to her swimming so far past the deep end that you might be tempted to throw her a pair of water wings. She, was reported to have said she was off her meds. But she also raved about the aircraft crashing – mid-flight scripting and behavior not terribly different from the JetBlue pilot’s. So declarations about not being medicated might have been nothing more than another example of irrational raving that had nothing to do with reality.

And all this highly unusual behavior in the course of one month.

Of course, it could be coincidental. But let me stroke your paranoia gland for just a bit here. Is the similarity just a coincidence or….

• Did the CIA or some other American governmental entity slip both crew members some weird kind of psychedelic? Remember, unaware Americans were poisoned with LSD once as part of a CIA experiment that made them  "unwitting subjects in social situations."   Is it possible we have a new generation of mad government scientists (or private entrepreneuers like the former Blackwater Group, which changed its name from Blackwater to Xe, an then from XE to Academi) playing cloak-and-dagger games?

• Is it possible that the hostess and the pilot are both victims of an Iranian or Al Queda poison-the-crew operation, designed to bring down airplanes without smuggling anything onto planes? And if so, will they keep trying until they succeed? 

I don’t know which paranoid thought is scarier, but when there are no previous events in recent memory of airline crew dropping their marbles all over the airplane, and then two occur in the same month, I would caution you to be afraid, be very afraid.

Most especially be very afraid if the airline pilot is sequestered, with no exposure to the public during which he can tell his own story – and instead we’re simply told informed he is in an instution somewhere.

Yeah, probably along with that American Airline hostess. What did become of her after a month, by the way?

Only asking. 

Sleeping with the enemy: is AARP about to betray its senior citizen members still another time?

This isn’t the first time I’ve blogged that AAARP appears to be betraying its members. You’ll find one of my my cranky complaints about AARP here: 

Now it would appear they’re at it again. Once more, my source is an e-mail from at FiredogLake.com below, which I encourage you to read in full.

Which raises another question. I’ve noticed some TV spots lately in which AARP members are invited to come to meetings and express their opinions. For what purpose? None is stated.

If AARP is trying to get an accurate sense of what its members think about Social Security and Medicare, it would be far more cost-effective to commission some reliable market research than to run a national advertising campaign asking self-selecting members to show up at meetings.

My guess: if AARP is actually planning to agree to cuts in Social Security and Medicare, they’re going to use the claim “we listened to you” as part of their excuse.

Don’t let them get away with it. Click on the link in the letter below, and let AARP know how furious you’d be.

Dear friend,

AARP is holding back-room meetings to strategize with social security opponents.

The Huffington Post reports that AARP CEO Barry Rand is inviting outspoken safety net opponents to an "off-the-record, salon style" meeting on March 27th on the future of social security, called The E Street Exchange, including US Chamber of Commerce Tom Donohue, Merrill Lynch Executive Harold Ford Jr. and former MI Gov. John Engler from the Business Rountable for corporate CEO's.1

Once again, AARP is working behind the scenes to build support for benefit cuts while masquerading about as an ardent defender of the safety net to its massive, dues-paying membership.

This is outrageous, and AARP should immediately call off the event and disavow this shameful attempt to throw its weight behind benefit cuts. Can you join us in demanding AARP CEO Barry Rand cancel the back-room E Street Exchange meeting on cutting social safety net benefits?

Tell AARP CEO Barry Rand to cancel the E Street Exchange event and abandon his efforts to throw AARP's support behind benefit cuts.

Click here to add your name: http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/aarp-rand
Last summer, our campaign of over 32,000 activists was successful in getting AARP to backtrack after their board voted to drop its opposition to social safety net cuts.2

But while AARP is offering a pathetic 6-question survey and 'town hall series' called "You Earned A Say and We're Listening" as a gesture towards "listening" to their 40 million+ membership, it seems they are most interested in adopting the same kind of off-the-record, unaccountable negotiations over benefit cuts that have characterized numerous attempts to dismantle the social safety net over the past few years -- from the Catfood Commission to the Super Committee.3

Laughably, while Rand's E Street Exchange is holding "relaxed and robust" discussions on "Strengthening Social Security: Facing up to the Challenge" with Washington's 1%, AARP's 6-question online survey assures its members: "...AARP is taking the debate about the future of these programs out from behind closed doors in Washington, so you can make your voice heard."4

Clearly, just from looking at the invitation to their salon style talk, nothing could be further from the truth.

Tell AARP CEO Barry Rand to cancel the E Street Exchange event and drop his efforts to throw his organization's support behind benefit cuts.

http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/aarp-rand
The E Street Exchange is scheduled to take place in Washington, DC on March 27th, and we're going to do everything we can to stop this silent assault on the social safety net. I hope you will join us in once again holding AARP accountable for its actions.

In solidarity,

Brian Sonenstein
Director of Online Activism,
Firedoglake.com

Let’s start calling people APPROPRIATE derogatory names. We can begin by changing the language we use to characterize Rush Limbaugh.

The trouble with most obscene and derogatory words is that they’re so over-used, they’ve lost their oomph. Sixty years ago, when he wrote The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer had to make up the word “fug,” in attempt to replicate the speech of soldiers during a war. Printing the actual F-word would have landed him and his publishers in the clink and might have resulted in his best-selling book getting yanked off the bookshelves.

These days, anything goes, and far too many words are either overused or inaccurately used, with a resulting loss of impact.

We can start with the misplaced notion that Rush Limbaugh is somehow an ‘entertainer.” (Google his name and the word “entertainer” and something like 312,000 references come up.)

Calling what Rush Limbaugh puts out “entertainment” is as ghastly as calling a public decapitation “a comedy show.”  Rush Limbaugh is no entertainer. He’s just an abusive gasbag. He tells lies. He twists meanings. And when he libels and slanders people in public broadcasts, those people could, and should find a legal avenue to sue him off his perch.

Case in point, Limbaugh recently slandered a law student who dared to testify before a Congressional committee in favor of medical coverage for birth control. He called her a prostitute. He called her a slut. He declared, "She's having so much sex she can't afford contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex." No such thing, as this video of her testimony clearly demonstrates. 

In light of this, words like “liar” and “slanderer” ought to be used by the press to describe Limbaugh, rather than a mild statement like “not true,” that characterizes what he says, but not the personality that issues the words.

As for the rest of decent America, declaring that “Rush Limbaugh is a liar and a gas bag,” would probably have triple the impact of calling him an “asshole,” which may be true in a metaphorical sense, but which is overused and considerably less specific about what Limbaugh has done to deserve an opprobrious epithet.

Not completely dissimilarly, when Mitt Romney, or Newt Gingrich, or Rick Santorum state things about Obama, or the economy, or American history that have little or no basis in truth, the press shouldn’t label them “false” or “not true.” They should be labeled what they are. They’re lies. Clear, boldfaced, deliberate, disingenuous, and often malicious lies.

Which makse the Republican candidates who issue these liars little more than self-serving liars.

But back to Limbaugh’s slander of a law student. In today’s foulmouthed, free-spewing climate, “self-serving liar” delivers a powerful counter-impact to anybody who dares label an innocent woman a “whore” or  a “slut” because Limbaugh doesn’t agree with her political point of view.

Another thing to call Limbaugh would be a “profit killer,” whose appearance on a broadcast station tends to suck the revenue out of its bottom line. Reminding national advertisers that sponsoring Limbaugh tends to interrupt their advertising plans and suck the black ink out of their bottom lines would go a long way toward keeping Limbaugh off the air, and in the sewer, where his outrageous personal attacks belong.  

And to think, I was ready to support Planned Parenthood to the death

Alas, I came across this, umm, fascinating case of what Planned Parenthood in Seattle is doing with QR codes, those square patterns of blobs and lines you see more and more in advertisements these days.

Very smart, Planned Parenthood, Seattle. If the enemy has no real ordnance to fire at you, send over a carload of ammunitions to help them out.

As my friend Hershey the Hit Man use to say, "It's pointless to shoot an armed man. Just wait for him to shoot himself."

Chastity Belt Manufacturers’ Association Endorses Rick Santorum

Washington, D.C.: The American Association of Chastity Belt Manufacturers today endorsed former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum in his campaign to become Republican nominee for the Presidency of the United States.

“After long and hard consideration, America’s chastity belt manufacturers have determined that Rick Santorum would best promote the ideals of chastity and submission that are the bedrock of traditional morality and of our business,” said Duane LaPoubel, chairman of the multi-member K Street association.

“In this noble spirit,” LaPoubel declared, “we have formed a Superpac called Americans for Life and Chastity.” The pro-life chastity super-pac is expected to contribute $190 million to the Santorum campaign, drowning out Mitt Romney and other candidates in the remaining   primaries, and overwhelming President Obama in the national elections.

LaPoubel noted that “the chastity belt is the most effective means of contraception known to humanity. It is far more powerful than the disgusting and life-destroying pill, as well as other mechanical or latex devices. It is even more powerful than abstinence. An abstinent person has to abstain. With a chastity belt, it doesn’t matter what a person tries to do. Or for that matter, what two people try to do. Unchaste activities are securely kept under lock and key.”

The chastity belt manufacturers for years have been attempting to promote their devices for purposes not only of contraception, but also for “encouraging young people to wait until marriage,” and for the prevention of rape.

In recent years they had become discouraged until Santorum announced his candidacy. The manufacturers believe Santorum is the candidate most likely to institute government programs mandating the use of chastity belts on women until they are wed, and in some cases well after marriage if their husbands choose.

The chastity belt manufacturers, for their part, have been refining their products to utilize modern technologies. For example, one chastity belt, the I-belt®, can be locked and unlocked only with a smartphone app coded by the person who has attached the woman’s belt. Another contains a tracking device that lets fathers or husbands know exactly where their women are at any given moment.

“These innovative new products are part of our pro-life campaign,” said LaPoubel. “When you think about it for a moment, nothing is more pro-life than a chastity belt.”

Encouraged by the medieval revivalist atmosphere enveloping Santorum, a few of the chastity belt manufacturers have also begun developing branded new products. Among them are stainless steel witch-dunking stools and fireproof stakes, which can be re-used many times for burning heretics, according to the manufacturer.

"These are the finest new anti-witch devices in eight hundred years," said LaPoubel.

Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy division: “Since nobody’s stopping us, let’s keep on crippling people. There’s big money in it.”

So okay, Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy division comes up with an artificial hip that supposedly is going to last longer and provide more durability than other artificial hips and help make walking look and feel more natural.

Let’s wildly assume that the product was brought to market in good faith. Nevertheless, by 2009, the DePuy hip is failing like a dimwitted six year in an advanced calculus class. People who’ve had the implant are in severe pain. They’re not only not walking better, they’re walking like people who’ve been crippled by their pain.

Surgeons who implanted the hips open their patients up again and find what the New York Times called “mysterious masses of dead tissue,” inside and around the thighs of some of these patients.

Worse, DePuy “received repeated warnings that the implant was failing and that surgeons were abandoning it.” And what  did DePuy do? For a painfully long time (pun intended) they kept stating despite the evidence that the hip implant was performing “on a par with competing devices.”

Even after the Food and Drug Administration forced J&J’s DePuy unit to take the product off the market, they kept peddling this crippling and evidently toxic implant in Europe, according to an article that popped up yesterday in the New York Times.

There’s more to the story than that, and I urge you, if you haven’t already clicked on the link, to go here and read the disgusting truth in detail.

But there’s more to the story that you won’t find in the New York Times. A few years ago, the Crank’s brother had poisonous DePuy hips inserted on both his left and right side. Last year, he needed to go through surgery to have one of the DePuy hips removed and replaced by a safer brand. The other hip hasn’t failed. Yet.

The Crank’s brother has a law degree and of course is suing J&J. But he is not sanguine about the outcome. He says that if he takes the case before a jury, he is not likely, at the age of 60-something, to live long enough to see the money because corporate law allows deep-pocketed companies to keep on...and keep on...and still keeping on appealing. The case could go on for a decade or more.

J&J knows this, so they're chiseling on settlement offers. The Crank’s brother tells me the company is offering paltry settlements in the area of $300,000 per hip, knowing that few of J&J’s victims want to go through the lengthy and onerous appeals process.

So who gets what from the settlement? According to The Crank's brother, the lawyer trying the case gets a third. The victim of Johnson &Johnson and DePuy gets a third. And the other third? Believe it or not, it goes to the health insurance company – in this case Medicare – which paid for the surgery and hospital stays, since they're victims of J&J and DePuy, too, if only financial victims.

That’s why the corrupt Republicans who want to eliminate medical malpractice law suits ought to be voted out of Congress. If they had their way, neither J&J’s victims or Medicare would get a dime back as a consequence of Johnson and Johnson's callous disregard for safety or human suffering. Both the taxpayers and the surgical victims would suffer.

Ditto for the evil or idiotic Congressmen who want to reduce regulations on businesses such as Johnson &Johnson. This case clearly demonstrates we need more regulation, not less.

As for the senior executives of DePuy and Johnson and Johnson, they ought to be sentenced to having both their hips forcibly replaced with the faulty DePuy hips, with no chance of removal. 

Where are Americans taking their technology? And what does this mean for Presidential election ad campaigns?

A true story first. Decades ago, when I was a young creative supervisor in an advertising agency, I interviewed an even younger guy looking for his first ad agency copywriting job. He showed me some speculative ads he had done. The ads themselves didn’t blow me away, but his initiative and wild imagination did.

One of the things he told me about was a business he had invented for himself. He tried to sell advertising space on the inside of public toilet stall doors.

“Look,” he said, “it’s a captive audience. Some people sit there for a long time and forget to bring in something to read. So I figured…”

It didn't matter what he figured. His wild thinking was too much for the stuffed shirts who made advertising decisions in those Mad Men days. But I hired the guy anyway. His name was Gary Kott. Before long he jumped ship from advertising for a career in movie and television writing. He ended up working on scripts for the Bill Cosby Show. He retired to the Nevada desert, I hear, still young (and richer than Croesus.) 

Crazy-like-a-fox ex-adman

enjoys the last laugh

Suddenly, Kott’s crazy idea doesn’t seem so crazy. And while technology has brought us far beyond john doors, the phenomenon that Kott glommed onto in about 1971 still holds.

According to a survey conducted by 11mark, a marketing agency in Alexandria, VA: 

“74 percent of men and 76 percent of women report they have used their mobile phone in the bathroom. 63 percent report they have answered a phone call, and 412 percent have initiated a phone call. Many (67 perent) have read a text, and 38 perent have surfed the Internet…”

The younger  they get, the more these people can’t drop their drawers without it. Says a press release about the report:

“As expected, Gen Y respondents are the heaviest IT in the toilet users. Ninety-one percent use their phone in the bathroom, but older generations are not far behind. Eighty percent of Gen X report they use the phone in the bathroom, as well as 65 percent of Boomers, and 47 percent of the Silent Generation…” 

Presidential campaign opportunity!

Clearly, this discovery presents an opportunity for the Democrats – as well as for further vindication of youthful  Kott’s brilliant  inspiration. Moreover, given the level of gutter advertising Romney and Gingrich have been hurling at each other, advertising for Democrats in toilet stalls would, if anything, bring up the level of discourse.

Imagine if, in October, you sat down on a john, say at a theater, only to discover a sign on the inside of the door a framed placard that says, “What is Romney’s economic plan? Explanation in four words." And then there's a number to text.

And when the smartphone-equipped person does just that, he or she gets a return message that says, “Romney-nomics: You’re sitting right over it."

Another: "Where will Romney's economics take America?"

When you text this time, the return message says, "press the handle behind you to see where Romney will take the economy."

“Guess what we’ve flushed out?” another john door sign might say. “Go to…” (and here there would be a URL inserted) to learn the no-crap truth.”

The possibilities just keep coming. “Constipated? You’re not alone. Romney’s full of it.”

“If you’re squeezing hard now, wait until you see what Romney does to your lifestyle and if he becomes president.”

Or just a big picture of Romney’s face with the headline, “Got gas?”

I'm not alone in thinking this is the wave of the future. “The writing is on the stall,” says Nicole Burdette, principal of 11mark.”

This is no crap.

Addendum: Gary Kott took a look at this post and tells me my memory is faulty. He writes that he has not only abandoned Nevada for a patch of California but that, " If the NY Times picks up on your blog, please tell them that the stall idea was Ron Gold's -- he's a great guy and I'd hate to hurt his feelings..." (Gary says he was merely selling john door ad space for Ron.)


If I should be so lucky as to hear from the Times about my blog, I will refer them to the paragraph above. 

Watch the best, most lucid and completely coherent policy speech Ron Paul ever made

Who’s the new Republican presidential candidate waiting in the wings?

The see-saw is doing its thing. Newt is up. Newt is down. Newt is down and Romney is up. Romney is up and Newt is down. Is the see-saw making you sea-sick yet?

The odds are good that it’s nauseating some Republicans, too. My condolences to them. Or maybe not, since what they seem to want to do most is dismantle the economy and the safety net that keeps most older Americans (and many of the younger ones) from freezing to death on the streets. And to lower taxes on the rich even if the rest of us have to pay for it with smaller soup rations on the bread line.

Still, one senses that the Republicans finally sense that they’re not going to beat Obama. Not with Gingrich. Not with Romney. And not with the passel of other candidates who either threw themselves in front of the bus, got thrown there by Republican primary voters, or who simply got sucked under the bus by the vacuum in rational thinking that surrounded them. (Think Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann, for example.)

This morning the New York Times ran an article saying that former Florida governor Jeb Bush is withholding his endorsement from Romney. Cranky old cynics like me immediately start wondering if Jeb is planning for a draft Jeb rally after Newt and Willard (aka Mitt) badmouth each other into a stall at the Republican convention.

Chris Christie, who also says he’s not a candidate, is also possibly a candidate.

Mitch Daniels, the Indiana senator who gave the world’s most boring speech to “rebut” President Obama? Possible candidate.

But I’m going to go with a long shot bet here, and nominate New York’s impresario of self-dealing, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Never mind that the billionaire “Mayor Mike” who can spend triple digit millions on a local political campaign the way you and I might drop $3.50 for a latte at Starbucks sabotaged the two-term mayoral limit and is now serving his third term.

Never mind that he keeps standing by his police commissioner, Michael Kelly, a character who looks like Popeye in a business suit. There have been outrageous excuses to shoo away Occupy Wall Street protestors in Zucotti Park. There’s the commissioner’s son, who now stands accused of rape and whose case has to be investigated by people outside the NYPD. There have been numerous instances police misbehavior such as this one, which resulted in … err, ah, umm … an “investigation” which has been creeping along at what some might consider a snail’s pace, despite the fact that police miscreants were caught on video pepper spraying their victims. What's to investigate for three months?

Never mind the outrageous Kathy Black scandal, in which the mayor appointed a crony with zero – that’s zero – educational experience to run one of the world’s largest public school systems. Fortunately, she self-destructed by mocking angry parents at a public meeting.

None of this matters. The mayor can only be mayor so long – even if he had to pay what most of us would consider a fortune to blow up the law that limited his term. What Bloomberg wants, Bloomberg buys. And I wouldn’t be amazed to see him try to buy the Republican presidential nomination.

Laundry, serendipity, New York – and two very talented musicians

Every so often I bulldoze this blog out of the political diatribe and social injustice business to discuss something more agreeable. Today I’d like to discuss laundry and magnificent music.

I live in a Manhattan apartment building. Once a week, grumbling about what a tedious pain in the neck it is, I drag my laundry down to the laundromat in my basement to wash, dry, fold … I’m sure you know the drill. But a couple of weeks ago, through a serendipitous accident, something wonderful happened in the laundry room.

On a bulletin board usually reserved for offers of baby sitting, house cleaning, and dog walking, somebody had posted a few concert tickets with an invitation to take them. They were to a Friday night performance by something called the Duo Sitkovetsky. Since I wasn’t doing anything that Friday night, I helped myself to a ticket.

I showed up t the appropriate auditorium in Carnegie Hall (there are several of them) and waited to see what would happen.

What happened was magical.

Alexander Sitkovestsky, a violinist, and Wu Qian, a pianist, performed works by Schumann, Prokoviev, Desyatnikov, and Grieg, worthy of the main concert hall – except that the main concert hall is too big for the intimate music of a two people.

I should warn you before I go any further that I am not a music critic, nor am I musically educated. When I read some music reviews, my brain hurts. Classical music criticism, in particular, has its own language, with which I am even less conversant than wiring diagrams for superhetrodyne radios. 

Some phrases (used in reviews of other artists) leave me scratching my head or gnashing my teeth: “deeply eloquent virtuosity,” “…the lines are sleek and urgent…” and “…balances unflinching control, fluid bowing and sure-fire intonation with extraordinary depth of vision.”

So what can I tell you about the Duo Sitkovestsky? I can say that there was something unique and beautiful about the way Wu Qian’s piano and Alexander Sitkovstsky’s violin harmonized with such chocolatey perfection, at least to my ear, that the music seemed to come from a single instrument.

I can tell you that (with one exception, which I’ll come to) the music was so delicious I almost felt that I could eat it. To have done so, were it possible, would have been like slowly munching a filet mignon, or a perfect piece of ... well, I've already mentioned chocolate. Cheese cake also comes to mind.

The advantage of attending a concert rather than simply listening to a recording of one is that the audience sometimes gets a visual treat, too. Sitkovestsky didn’t merely play his violin. He sometimes leaned into it, eyeing its bridge like a cat stalking a mouse. To continue the metaphor, sometimes, he seemed to be pouncing on the mouse. At other times, playing with it, letting it run for a few inches, then catching it and pulling it back to him.

By contrast, at least from where I sat, Qian’s performance seemed to emanate a kind of cool sense of control and timing. If Alexander was the cat, Qian was the cat’s human, calmly enjoying and putting out musical playthings for the pet to pounce on ande conquor.

If I have one cavil, it was the choice of one piece, called Wie der Alt Leiermann for Violin and Piano, written by a contemporary Russian composer, Leonid Desyatnikov. The fact that my musical taste never progressed much beyond the first half of the 20^th Century may have something to do with this, but the piece brought to mind a story about Lenin attending a performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

At the end of the concert, Lenin was brought backstage and introduced to Stravinsky. “Very nice, Comrade Igor,” said Lenin, glaring with a hint of annoyance at the composer and giving him a fishy handshake. “Next time, give me some music the workers can whistle to.”

Sorry, gang, although I never liked Lenin, I’m with him on this one.

All the same, everything else I heard was so magnificent that I wanted to feast on more. I wrote to Diane Saldick, Duo Sitkovestsky’s representative in North America, in part to ask her where in the United States they would be performing next.

“They will not be appearing in the USA in the coming months,” she replied.

Too bad. They deserve to be heard more by American audiences.

Diane Saldick also let me know that Qian and Alexander met at the Yehudi Menuhin School in London “when they were very young” – which couldn’t have been too long ago, since they’re both still in their twenties. They recently married.

And that’s my New York story for the day, except to say, “What a city!” Where else in the world can you go to a cellar to put your underwear in a washing machine, and end up listening, live for the first time, to a chamber music concert in Carnegie Hall, by two brilliant young musicians? 

Newt Gingrich's press bashing only highlights his hypocrisy

"Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things. To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary, a significant question in a presidential campaign, is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine."

That was Newt the other night, responding to one of his two ex-wives' just-announced allegations that he wanted an open marriage so he could carry on his affair with the woman who is his present wife.

I'd give more credence to his tantrum if he hadn't pursued Bill Clinton's impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky affair. Yes, I agree there's a technical difference. Clinton lied under oath, in a trumped-up hearing engineered to bring maximum attention to his dalliance with Lewinsky. Newt, on the other hand, is only lying to the American public. But what does that tell us about how he'll perform as president?

Gingrich also claims that the networks turned down offers for some of Newt's friends to go before the cameras and testify that he didn't ask for an open marriage.

How could they possibly know? Were they in the Gingrich bedroom when the conversation took place? And if so, does that mean that Newt was also having threesomes?

Yeah, I just got snarky. But Gingrich is a  a serial philanderer and, I suspect, a serial liar who wants to be the next President of the United States.

That's why inquiring minds want to know.

Note: Cartoon by Baldinger under a creative commons license. No endorsement of my cranky views by Baldinger is intended or implied.

Outraged by the Washington corruptocracy? You'd better read this.

At the time of the Anthony Weiner scandal, business magazine columnist, blogger and direct marketing guru Denny Hatch got fed up more than most of us with the way things work in Washington. He wrote the piece that follows, which  I suspect he fleetingly intended for his blog, Denny Hatch's Business Common Sense. (He didn't say that. I infer that.)

Once he got it out of his system, he decided his justifiable fury wasn't right for what he calls his marketing crowd. But he has kindly permitted me to print it here. And that is something I do with cranky pleasure. I do not agree with absolutely everything Denny has to say. Nevertheless, his gist is horrifyingly on target.  Read it and see for yourself. (Fair warning: you may retch at what goes on in Washington.)

The Great Congressional Payola

Anthony Weiner: Casualty of a Crazed, Schizoid Lifestyle

By Denny Hatch

  

IN THE NEWS

Anthony Weiner’s Judgment

The scandal raises issues that transcend one man's personal indulgence.

In one of the most unbearable news conferences ever seen, Congressman Weiner admitted his week of lies about his lewd online relationships, apologized to all and sundry, but said he will not resign. We'll leave the last point to his constituents, but Mr. Weiner's ambitions to be mayor of New York City are finished and his credibility in national politics after this is next to nothing. . .

     Anthony Weiner now joins a disturbing list of elected officials in our time who've lost any sense of self-discipline. If there are others out there wandering in the confused ethers that trapped Anthony Weiner, we have a request: Get out now. Spare the rest of us.

—Editorial

  The Wall Street Journal, June 7, 2011

Anthony Weiner was best congressional catnip of 2011.

The problem starts with all members of Congress having one single, overarching personal agenda: Get re-elected.

No matter what members of the House and Senate believe in their deep heart’s core, all speeches, votes, interviews, town meetings, confirmation hearings and individual encounters with the media, industry leaders, lobbyists, foreign envoys, voters and members of the executive branch—all must be seen through this prism of desperation for re-election.

Why is nothing is getting done in terms of the deficit, national debt, health care, Middle East wars, Pentagon spending, global warming/environment, and jobs creation?

All 435 house members and 100 senators are terrified of double-crossing the 140 top benefactors—from ActBLue ($52,443,515) and AFSCE ($45,237,515) to Bear Stearns ($3,374,125) and Club for Growth ($1,535,979)—who spread a total of $1.97 billion throughout Congress from 1989-2010.

Follow the Money

“The ideal employee,” said children’s book publisher Franklin Watts, “is one who feels overworked and underpaid.”

Underpaid? Congresspersons are far richer than the electorate.

A few in congress are very, very, very rich. Among them:

Member                                                   Avg. Net Worth

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)         $303,575,011

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA)         $293,454,761

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)         $238,812,296

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)         $174,385,102

Rep. Jared Polis (D-CA)          $160,909,068

Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI)         $160,302,011

Rep. Vernan Buchanan (R-FL)         $148,373,160

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)         $137,611,043

Sen. James E. Risch (R-ID)         $109,034,052

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)         $  98,832,010

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)         $  58,436,537

However, many members of Congress are woefully underpaid and living in financial hell. Base salary is $174,000 per year plus health care, up to 64 round trips home, retirement benefits and a $3000 tax credit on D.C. living quarters.

To Jane and Joe Lunchbucket, this is a lot of money. But for the majority of members—those beyond Virginia and Maryland—it means maintaining a second residence in Washington—the eighth most expensive city in the America. A decent wardrobe is essential. Those members with alimony and a kid in college at $20,000 per semester are gasping for air. Hence the parade of members caught in such no-nos as bribes, money laundering, illegal financial gifts, free plane rides and junkets, and funneling campaign money into personal accounts. Among the recent perpetrators (in alphabetical order):

Barbara-Rose Collins – Randy (Duke) Cunningham – Tom DeLay – Walter Fauntroy - Newt Gingrich – Carroll Hubbard - William J. Jefferson – Buzz Lukens - Nicholas Marvroules - Bob Ney – Carl C. Perkins - Charlie Rangel – Dan Rostenkowski - Rick Renzi - Ted Stevens – Robert Torricelli – Jim Trafficant – William R. Tucker

Last January, CBS News reported that to save money while in Washington, D.C., one-fifth of the House freshmen planned to sleep in their offices. Others that are living away from home share the squalor of dorm-like facilities. From The New York Times, May 30, 1994:

For Representatives Sam Gejdenson of Connecticut, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, George Miller of California and Charles E. Schumer of Brooklyn, Washington life is not all beer and roses. It's more like beer and frozen soy burgers, stale tortilla chips, lost laundry, monthly trips to Price Club and weekly commutes to their districts and families back home.

Sam cooks, Dick cleans, George collects the rent and Chuck raids the refrigerator. Weeknights, they shoot the breeze in their underwear in the Capitol Hill town house where two of them sleep in unkempt beds in the living room like so many superannuated frat boys, and check to see if anyone they know turns up on "Nightline."

In order to economize on food and drink, many in Congress likely mooch at every public and private buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner to which they can wangle an invitation. At Washington events—with spouses hundreds of miles away and where loneliness and hormones kick in—it’s easy to go from focusing on laws to focusing on attractive singles on the prowl. Hence the plethora of serial infidelities and sex scandals by members that have included (in alphabetical order):

Bob Barr – Larry Craig – John Ensign - Mark Foley – Newt Gingrich – Gary Hart - Henry Hyde – Chris Lee - Bob Livingston – Eric Massa – Jack Ryan – David Vitter – Anthony Weiner             

When members of Congress do return to their districts—where spouses likely must have a job to help meet expenses—they are vilified at town meetings, besieged by jobless constituents whose homes are being foreclosed and are scared to death of having to pay for Obamacare or losing Medicare. This hostile environment is hardly conducive to savoring the comforts of home and conjugal bliss.

Forced to Buy Their Jobs

Imagine not only working for a living, but also having to repurchase your job for millions of dollars every two or six years.

The current average cost of a congressional campaign is $1.3 million. This means the average member of the House must raise $9,000 a week every week during the two-year election cycle in order to stay in office. Once re-elected, the manic scramble for campaign cash starts all over again. This is made complicated by the House Ethics Manual that states:

House rooms and offices are not to be used for events that are campaign or political in nature, such as a meeting on campaign strategy, or a reception for campaign contributors.

With the average senate race costing $7.5 million, each senator must raise $24,000 a week during the six-year cycle. A filthy rich opponent can up the ante exponentially. For example, in the 2010 California senatorial race, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina spent $21.5 million, forcing her opponent (and winner) Barbara Boxer to raise and spend $29.5 million. 

A senator that needs $29.5 million for a campaign must raise $94,550 a week, every week during the six-year election cycle.

In other words that crucial part of a legislator’s career—campaign strategy, fundraising or talking to contributors—can only be conducted away from the office and out of the building. This means if an urgent call comes in from a top benefactor, the legislator must scurry outside and call back on a cell phone.

The Great Congressional Payola


Payola: The paying of cash or gifts for radio play, and is a combination of the words “pay” and “victrola”, which stands for LP record player.

—Erika Cox

  “Rewind the Fifties”

Payola was a huge scandal that broke in the late 1950s. Record companies bribed radio disc jockeys to play their latest releases over the airwaves causing them to move up the Billboard charts and generate sales. In 1975, United States Attorneys in New York, Newark, Philadelphia and Los Angeles issued 19 indictments—six of them against record company presidents—alleging income tax evasion, fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property.

Now illegal in the entertainment industry, Payola is a way of life in Congress.

Congressional Payola: How It Works

One of the many 800-pound gorillas breaking the financial back of the country is Medicare Part D—prescriptions drugs for seniors. According to Reason’s Nick Gillespie, Medicare Part D will cost taxpayers $62 billion this year.

Unlike the Veterans Administration, which saves an average of 40% on drugs by negotiating for lower costs with the pharmaceutical companies, the Medicare program is forced to pay the full retail rack rate.

If Medicare obtained the same drug prices as the VA, it would save a total of $24.8 billion per year.

This is not a Democratic or Republican or Independent issue. It’s the right thing to do for America—save $billions a year and help trim the deficit.

Since Part D was passed, a small group of senators and representatives routinely introduce a bill enabling Medicare to negotiate with the drug companies.  On January 25, 2011 S. 44: The Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2011 was introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and co-sponsored by Mark Begich (D-AK), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Bernard Sanders (I-VT) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).

According to OpenSecrets.org, not one of these folks received significant—if any—campaign contributions from the Pharmaceutical Industry.

If passed by the senate and the house, the bill would represent a loss to pharmaceutical companies of billions of dollars a year. After being logged in, it was sent to the Senate Finance Committee for action.

The members of that committee received campaign and private PAC contributions of $5,822,782 from the Health Professionals Industry and $3,656,494 from Big Pharma for a grand boondoggle of $9,473,276.

What are the chances of a bill reaching the floor of the Senate that would allow Medicare to negotiate prices with the Pharmaceutical Industry?

Zero. Zip. Nada.

“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em,” said Tammany Hall politician George Washington Plunkitt ((1842–1924).

“An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought,” said Lincoln’s Secretary of War Simon Cameron (1799-1889).

Anthony Weiner—just the latest of a long line of congressional miscreants

Suddenly, in this bizarre and surreal existence that members of Congress endure, Rep. Anthony Weiner went off the rails. The media played his siren song on its 24/7 Mobius loop. The friends, colleagues and punditorcacy wrung their hands, shook their heads in disbelief and called for his ouster. Only his constituents wanted him to stay; according to a Politico.com poll, Weiner garnered a 56% approval rating.

The congressman initiated an aggressive cover up by lying to the media, lying to the public and lying to his colleagues in Congress. Caught in the lies, he tried a “mea culpa” press conference and stonewalling, but the pressure from all sides was too great. He held another press conference and resigned.

“And of course I want to express my gratitude to my family,” he said in closing. “To my mother and father who instilled in me the values that have carried me thus far. . .”

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt shared Weiner’s values and promptly offered him a job at $209,000 plus medical benefits and moving expenses to Los Angeles.

Welcome to Congress, the most do-nothing, duplicitous, dyspeptic and dishonest political culture in the free world.

Takeaways to Consider

*The ideal employee is one that feels overworked and underpaid.”

—Franklin Watts

* Who are the real constituents of Congress? Are they the voters and taxpayers? Or are they the 140 top “heavy hitters”—from ActBLue ($52,443,515) and AFSCE ($45,237,515) to Bear Stearns ($3,374,125) and Club for Growth ($1,535,979)—who spent a total of $1.97 billion buying off Congress from 1989-2010?

* Should not members of Congress be paid a decent wage—say $1 million a year—so they can afford to move their families to D.C? They could also have a life after politics were they to vote for what’s right (rather than what’s profitable) and lose their seats in the process.

* Should not members of Congress be given a free place to live in D.C. just like the president and vice-president?

* “I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.”

—George Washington Plunkitt ((1842–1924)

  New York Tammany Hall politician

* “An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.”

—Simon Cameron (1799-1889)

  Secretary of War, 1861-1862

* Every time the media cover a member of Congress speaking out or voting on an issue, the related cash gifts to his or her campaign committee should be included in the story as a balance.

* "The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money."

— Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Related Websites

Denny Hatch is founder and creator of the monthly blog www.businesscommonsense.com, launched in 2005. A writer, designer and consultant in the field of direct marketing, he is the author of six books on marketing and three novels. Living and working in Philadelphia, Denny can be reached at www.dennyhatch.com or dennyhatch@yahoo.com.