The next time Michael Mukasey is called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee I suggest that he be strapped to a stretcher, a rag placed in his mouth and water poured in the rag until he begins to answer completely and truthfully the questions put to him by the committee.

Now that waterboarding has become an accepted form of interrogation in these United States, I recommend that it be utilized not only with Mukasey, but with all future witnesses before committees of the congress. I think that there are subpoenas kicking around out there for Condi Rice and other executive department figures who have been less than forthcoming in past appearances, so perhaps as our favorite republican tough guy Rudy Giuliani says, we should question them aggressively.

It might be a good idea if the voting public were able to use the same technique in questioning the presidential candidates on their positions. For the rest of the debates all candidates should be wheeled in strapped to stretchers and aggressively questioned using this simulated drowning method.

Using these methods we may begin to get the truth from our “public servants” and declared wannabes.

This will not work in Atlanta however, they don’t have enough water at the moment to achieve any kind of satisfactory results.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

In today's column, Krugman opens up the real question about leadership in America today.  It's not about what party one is associated with, it's about how much they are influenced by economically powerful forces.  Which is the primary reason a deep chill goes down my spine when the latest poll suggests that 56% of women — all women- favor HRC.  Unlike Obama and other candidates, Clinton's war chest is full of corporate cash.  Of course, her spokespeople would reply that other candidates have corporate donations as well.  Reality would suggest a simple counter response:  yea, just not nearly so much.

I won't quote Krugman here — the whole piece is worth the time to click the link above.  But it seems that there's an underlying fear of the most wealthy people in America, who have made their fortunes in an American marketplace.  The fear is simply put, that the money will run — away from lawmakers and leaders who suggest a reasonable tax on hedge fund principals (now at a mere 15%); or off to a newly created tax exempt trust; or perhaps to Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, or even the moon.

If a handful of economically powerful people were charged to pay their fair share back into the financial system they benefited from, the result would be billions in revenue.  However, until our leadership understands how they are necessarily influenced by the financial elite, and begin to address inequities in America, then every move forward will be weighed down by the powerful resistance of wealth. 

Thousands of us face myriad barriers — financial, access, policy, intentional corporate interference and other impediments — when it comes to receiving basic (or any) health care.

With a health care delivery system imploding in front of our eyes, the Vermont Department of Health is going full-bore with a new initiative. To aid physicians and patients in these troubled times of healthcare delivery collapse, the Department of Health has deputized enlisted the helping hands (and eyes) of law enforcement throughout the State.

Thinking of having surgery? Got a chronic condition?  Do you have a spouse or family member fighting cancer? Does your child struggle with ADHD? Well, guess what the Department of Health's brand spanking new program will do to for you.  For starters, it's designed:

 — to spy on patients, and
 — to monitor the specific treatment practices your physician provides for you, and
 — to transfer your confidential medical information to various police agencies and state investigators, all in contravention of Vermont law . . .

(of course, there is more, below . . . )

The Vermont General Assembly passed a law in 2005 called the “Vermont Prescription Monitoring System” (VPMS).  Sound ominous? Well it is worse than it sounds. 

The Department of Health is in the process of seeking legislative approval of administrative rules the Department drafted to govern VPMS. The proposed rules will monitor your physician's provision, and your access to, hundreds of treatments for thousands of conditions. The purpose of the law is intended to identify substance abusers and to facilitate their treatment — nothing inherently wrong with that and in fact it is a laudable goal.  However, the proposed regulations by the Department of Health do not accomplish the goal set out by the legislature, violate the laws governing the VPMS and present too many dangers for disclosure, misuse, mishandling of sensitive patient medical information. 

“Administrative Rules”  Administrative rules, or regulations, are the Vermont regulatory laws that implement state agency programs. These regulations flesh out the details of the tatutes that fall under the jurisdiction of various bureaucracies. The Department of Health's proposed regulations violate the laws they are intended to facilitate.  Here a few reasons why these regulations must be stopped before they go into effect.

The law creating VPMS, Title 18 Chapter 84a requires the Department of Health to do ONE THING.  The legislation states that the Department of Health must:

adopt rules for the implementation of VPMS . . . 45 C.F.R. Part 164 [federal privacy and data protection guidelines] that limit the disclosure to the minimum information necessary for purposes of this act.

In other words, the legislature passed a law requiring, and authorizing, the Department of Health to regulate, with the strictest protocols possible, any potential disclosure of medical information it collects as part of VPMS.  The legislature did not give the Department of Health authority to do much else.

It was the legislation's intent that the Department of Health develop a system to protect the confidential information it collects in VPMS.  It must then use that information consistent with the overall purpose of the legislation, which is to facilitate public health and treatment of those who need it. That did not happen. Instead, there are a significant number of legal, policy, practical problems and mistakes in the Department's proposed VPMS regulations. I will highlight just three.

                     *          *            *

#1 The legislature required the Department to write ONE policy and procedural objective into the regulations, and the Department ignored this statutory mandate. The law requires procedures to identify and then disclose if necessary the minimum necessary information to achieve VPMS's goal. Facing just this one requirement, the Department of Health has given birth to VPMS Regulations devoid of a single strand of “Disclosure Limiting” DNA.  The Department has effectively ignored its primary responsibility to Vermont patients and physicians.

On the flip side of this same problem, the VPMS law prohibits the Department from disclosing your medical information in specific instances for your protection and for your medical provider's protection.  The Department's proposed rules ignore this critical aspect of the law as well.

For this reason alone, the proposed rules must be withdrawn, rewritten or outright rejected by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules.

                      *          *            *

  #2 The Department of Health is also attempting, in proposed Rule 1.7, to divest Vermont Courts of jurisdiction over one critical aspect Vermont patients and physicians may encounter with VPMS.  Without any legislative authorization, the Department is claiming for the Commissioner of Health “sole discretion” over any decisions related to erroneous, or other corrupt or suspect data.

Consider this, like the federal no-fly list, if your records have a mistake (purely hypothetical, right?) you cannot ask a court to require VPMS to account accurately or report to your health care providers reliable information about your prescription history.  Vermonters have a right, under our Constitution, to remedies at law and it is doubtful that the legislature could have given the Commissioner this type of authority even if it wanted to. Here the Department of Health is merely claiming legal authority for its Commissioner, which the law in no way envisions. For this reason alone, the proposed rules must be withdrawn, rewritten or outright rejected by the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules.

                     *          *            *

#3 The Department's proposed rules violate one of the key compromises worked out in the legislature among the various parties involved in developing the final statutory language passed and signed by the Governor. The legislature, medical providers, patient advocates and others were rightly concerned that this program might turn into a state tool to spy on people or that highly sensitive personal medical information may circulate through policing agencies inappropriately. 

To curb possible abuses, the legislature MANDATED (18 V.S.A. §4284(6)) that only the commissioner of health “personally” – in limited and defined circumstances – may disclose your medical information to Vermont police. The law specifies that the commissioner of public safety may receive, directly and personally, limited information from the health commissioner, personally, in rare emergency circumstances.

The point of this disclosure limitation and requirement was due to the fact that this is a public health statute, not a police monitoring statute.  Disclosure to policing agencies, if made at all, is only permitted under the VPMS law in a rare emergency case of an “imminent” threat to public safety as personally determined and evaluated and communicated by the Commissioner of Health.  No Exceptions.

To sneak around this legal requirement, the Department of Health’s proposed regulation (Rule 3.4) includes this gem:

For “purposes of this [law],” the term Commissioner shall mean: “A deputy Commissioner of Health” and on the law enforcement side, “Commissioner” shall mean “Director of Vermont State Police” or “other management designated by the Commissioner of Public Safety to receive” the information.  In other words “anyone.”

Hey, why not define your neighbors, your employer and business associates as “Commissioner for the purposes of implementing VPMS” while we are at it?

The contempt for the enabling legislation is palpable in this proposed rule 3.4.  The Department of Health has taken an important legislative compromise — one that received significant testimony and deliberation, — and it has re-written the law to suit its own agenda outside of the governing law. 

                     *          *            *

The Department of Health must not be allowed to treat the administrative rulemaking process as an opportunity to re-write state law.  The rulemaking process is an obligation to implement state law not an opportunity to change it. The proposed rules ignore the critical restrictions the legislature put on the transfer of health data to Vermont police.  For this reason alone, these proposed regulations must be either withdrawn and re-written or outright rejected by the legislative committee on administrative rules.

The Department of Health has spent months of work and invested significant State resources on VPMS but:

A. the Dep't did not write the regulations the law requires the Dep't to do; and

B. the Dep't exceeded is statutory authority by revising VPMS beyond anything permitted in Vermont law; and

C. the Dep't, in addition to exceeding its authority, is now poised to impose regulations that violate the express language of the VPMS statute.

This is really the scary part. The Department of Health, before it even begins assembling your most personal and confidential medical data into a giant and ill-defined state program, has already telegraphed its intention to ignore the governing law.

Tomorrow, Monday the 5th of November, is the final day to comment on the Department of Health's proposed rules.  If the Department of Health does not withdraw the proposed rules after the public comment period, then the proposed rules will go to the Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules (LCAR) for its approval.

No Vermonter or citizens' group should have to go to court to stop these rules from taking effect. The Department of Health needs to withdraw the rules and rewrite them or LCAR must reject them. The public is invited comment directly on the proposed rules at the Department of Health website: http://healthvermont.gov/admin/comment/RxMonitoring_comment.aspx.  The Department of Health is required to respond and to consider any substantive comments, suggestions or proposed changes it receives. 

I will post VPMS updates in the upcoming days addressing comments to the Department of Health on the proposed rules, and Department of Health's responses to those comments.

Private medical information is serious business affecting people's lives and livelihoods in many ways. This makes it a dangerous area for irresponsible government.  No matter what the subject, however, there is no excuse for state agencies jeopardizing our rights by acting so blatantly outside of the law.

Yea, but not in the centerfold.  You can read all about his interview in Hef's glossy.

Also, on Nov 1, the Governor rec'd a nod from Lee Iacoca: 

Unlike others on the stump, he's offering bold plans, not just pandering talk. I like his jobs plan, his healthcare and energy plan, education plan and his plan to get us out of Iraq.

He's putting out a new effort to aid Veterans, and he's receiving new money support from lobbyists in his home state.

His numbers in Iowa and NH are once again below the double-digit threshold, but look for a possible southern bump for Richardson as his campaign makes bold strides.

The Playboy interview?  Hey, he may as well go for the male audience in an overt way, seeing how Clinton is the first one to play the gender card.

So… this is a basic algebra problem.  Solve for the variables and you can come up with the answer.  Once again, this is from my puzzle archive at Julie’s Puzzle Corner:

29A + x = 29D
AB + 2 = AD
5 + 7 = y
A + 1 = B
x + y = ?

Can you tell me what goes in the “?”

A couple notes:

• this is a simple algebra problem;
• there is a unique solution;the unique solution consists of a single number;
• simple is not the same as easy.

A big welcome to Earth to Hayden Avery Baxter Avard, who arrived yesterday (Friday November 2nd). Brattlerouser says: “He's healthy, 21 inches and weighs seven pounds, 11 ounces (that's  right, 7-Eleven!!!!).”

Ah, kids these days. Congrats to Mom and Dad. We expect to see the kid online by the age of 4, since it's clearly in his blood.

Board votes 3-2 to fire Brattleboro police chief

November 2, 2007
 

By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff

    BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro Police Chief John Martin was fired Wednesday night after the Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2.

The controversial Tasering of two peaceful protesters in July for trespassing on a vacant lot appeared to play a significant but not deciding role in Martin's firing, according to a 19-page findings of fact the town released to support the Select Board's decision.

I just posted the other day about the crook who is running the Consumer Products Safety Commission.  Actually, it wasn't that clear that she's crooked, it was just clear at the time that she is opposed to the very mission of the agency she heads, and she demonstrates that by opposing legislation that would make her agency more effective, expand its budget and staff, and thereby make American consumers safer.
Just a day later, and what do we find out? Of course she's crooked, we just didn't know it yet. Now we do. A story in today's Post shows that the CPSC people have been going crazy taking junkets paid for by the industries they're supposed to be regulating:

The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards.

The records document nearly 30 trips since 2002 by the agency's acting chairman, Nancy Nord, and the previous chairman, Hal Stratton, that were paid for in full or in part by trade associations or manufacturers of products ranging from space heaters to disinfectants. The airfares, hotels and meals totaled nearly $60,000, and the destinations included China, Spain, San Francisco, New Orleans and a golf resort on Hilton Head Island, S.C.

How can you justify this? Obviously, you can't, which isn't to say she doesn't try. Nancy Nord was on McNeil-Lehrer tonight, and they interviewed her about this scandal, and she tried to justify it, partly because it's entirely within the proper realm of the agency to be communicating with the industry they regulate, and these junkets were the way to do that. Naturally, one giant hole in that argument is that she's also arguing against giving her agency more money, and if she thinks there are things the agency should be doing, that somebody else needs to be paying for it, then maybe they should really be getting an adequate budget.

Of course, it's worse than that. With these guys it's always worse than it looks at first, right?

Take a look at what she said about addressing industry groups: But at this point, our agency needs to be talking to our constituencies to make sure that they understand their obligations under the law.

“Our constituencies.”

The people the CPSC works for, at least in the eyes of Nancy Nord, are the people who make dangerous products, toys made with lead, and other products that poison or kill American consumers.

She's right, of course, but this is just one more sign of what's so vicious about the Republicans.

Who do you like so far?

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Boo-yah!

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Friday he won't support Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey, potentially derailing his confirmation over complaints that he hasn't taken a full enough stand against torture.

“No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vermont. He planned an afternoon news conference to make the announcement in Burlington.

TPM is tracking the yeas and nays here. Right on, Pat & Bernie (and major  thanks to Kagro X for continuing to be a national leader on this).