The Cash for Clunkers Nightmare Continues

New Jersey dealers are finding the cash for clunkers program continuing to fall short of the ability to reimburse dealers for the rebates. Some are owed tens of thousands of dollars and have yet to see a dime.

Some are even pulling out of the program until they see the money from the government.

The program, originally $1 billion, was increased to $3 billion after the government appeared to run through the $1 billion allotment. Never mind that the spending of the money in and of itself was or was not a sign of the program's success.

Consider that the dealers who were trying to access the system to provide the needed data in order to get the reimbursement from the government faced a total nightmare as the computer system repeatedly crashed and failed to work and handle the data traffic.

The Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) has been such a bureaucratic nightmare for new car dealers that paperwork sitting on desks waiting to be processed could exhaust the $3 billion program weeks before it was supposed to end.

"I talk to dealers around New Jersey who tell me that they might have only entered half of the deals they have so far because there are so many issues that have cropped up," said James Appleton, executive director of the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers.

"I think the program is pretty close to being out of money," he said.

CARS transactions are also likely to surge now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which administers the program, has opened it to vehicles ordered from manufacturer rather than just those purchased from dealer inventory. The change was announced by NHTSA this week in response to dealers' complaints the program has been so successful they were running out of inventory.

CARS provides rebates of either $3,500 or $4,500 when buyers trade in older gas-guzzling cars and trucks for more fuel efficient new models. Dealers are reimbursed the full amount.

But from the start, the program has been beset by administrative woes. Four of every five applications have been rejected, some for minor oversights in submitting the paperwork.

So far, dealers have been reimbursed for just 2 percent of the approved deals. But even those dealers complain the payments they receive from the government electronically do not indicate which particular transaction the reimbursement is for.

"The bad news is you have to wait to be paid," Appleton said. "The worse news is you won't know what you're being paid for."

Dealers needed to reduce inventories at this point because the new model year was coming out. It was also needed because of continued consolidation of dealerships due to the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies and the overall slowdown in the economy.

What isn't a given is that this program gave the auto industry a boost. I suspect that the program merely shifted when sales would occur so that July and August would see more robust sales, that would drop off later in the year, when they would normally pick up.

Further, what exactly does this mean to the consumer? They still have to pay for these new cars. They have to have good credit, and if they don't will have to pay higher interest rates.

This is all too reminiscent of the real estate market bubble and concurrent credit market collapse. Government distortion of the markets meant that the ensuing crash was far more severe than had the government chosen not to demand that those with insufficient credit be provided access to home mortgages.

The NY Times has a FAQ that applies primarily to those people looking for cars under the program, not the dealers, who face a nightmare of red tape and delays. For the buyer, they've got to find vehicles that meet the qualifications under the program and have to work with eligible dealerships. Buyers can't use the cash for clunkers program to buy a used car, even if it means that they'd otherwise qualify for the program.

That also means that used car dealers and charities are taking it on the chin. Charities in particular are getting hard hit because they would otherwise be getting a piece of the action on the used car market to turn around and fund their charitable programs. Instead, they are seeing nothing.

Nonprofit groups that raise money by accepting donations of older vehicles have been among the program's unintended losers. Vehicle Donation to Any Charity, a Point Richmond firm that works with 4,500 nonprofits nationwide, recently said its intake of old cars has dropped 20 percent since the program went into effect.

Used car dealers have been particularly irate about the subsidy, saying it has driven buyers to new car lots at a time when their business was already suffering from tight credit and a shortage of used cars.

"Before the clunkers, business had been off at least 30 percent from last year, and after the clunkers started it fell another 20 percent," said Sevki Abbasoglu, owner of the Auto Exchange used car lot in Alamo.

"This is completely unjust," said Terry Degmetich, a used car dealer in Roseville and president of the Independent Automobile Dealers Association of California.

The program was defended by Paul Taylor, chief economist with the National Automobile Dealers Association, which represents new car sellers.

"The government is getting what it wanted," Taylor said. "It's a stimulus program that gets immediate traction."

Taylor noted that Ford, Toyota, Chrysler and General Motors have all added production to replenish depleted inventories. Locally, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., the Fremont auto plant whose future is in doubt, has said demand created by the clunkers program would keep the factory busy through October.

Keep in mind, however, that GM, Chrysler, and other automakers shut down production lines for months because of oversupply in their inventories. They had to do so or else the supply would rise above the already historic levels. The inventory levels are now returning to industry norms, so the resumed production is a function of getting the new model year vehicles on the dealer lots as much as it is about the cash for clunkers program.

And the so-called stampede for sales under the program may end with a whimper.

J.D. Power & Associates (which, like BusinessWeek, is owned by The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP)) thinks that most of the cars purchased through the program were simply sales that would have happened this year but were pulled ahead a few months. The company believes as few as 20% of the cars bought in the program are really new sales to the market. That means as many as 80% of the cars would have been sold this year anyway, says Gary Dilts, president of J.D. Power's auto industry group. That means that there will likely be payback with some slower sales months after the program expires.

A Gaza Blowup

Things in Gaza are coming to a head, and it completely the result of Hamas and other Islamists taking offense with each other. Al Qaeda-aligned groups in Gaza don't think that Hamas is sufficiently Islamist enough, even as Hamas has been busy cracking down on what it calls un-Islamic behavior. One of these groups, Jund Ansar Allah, defied Hamas rule and claimed Gaza to be an Islamic emirate.

Hamas didn't like that one bit.

So, they're battling among the mosques.

The fighting erupted Friday when Hamas security men surrounded a mosque in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on the Egypt border where about 100 members of Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Companions of God, were holed up.

Flares lit up the sky overnight as Hamas machine gun fire and rocket propelled grenades slammed into the mosque. The militants inside the structure returned fire with automatic weapons and grenades of their own.

The head of the radical Islamic group, Abdel-Latif Moussa, was killed when fighting resumed after dawn Saturday, Ihab Ghussein, a Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman, told The Associated Press.

He said Moussa detonated an explosives vest he was wearing during the fighting.

"The so-called Moussa has committed suicide ... killing a mediator who had been sent to him to persuade him and his followers to hand themselves over to the government," Ghussein said.

Also killed in the fighting between Hamas and this group was one of the Hamas terrorists responsible for the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Note that Hamas and the Islamists do not care that they're in mosques; they're actively fighting in and among them; their leaders purposefully wear suicide vests so as to maximize casualties should they be confronted, and all are armed to the teeth.

Hamas is continuing its offensive against the Jund, arresting other members of the terror group.

Misogyny Watch In Afghanistan

The Afghan government has passed a misogynistic law that allows husbands to withhold food and sustenance if their wives deny them sexual satisfaction.

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

In early April, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of condemnation when the Guardian revealed that the earlier version of the law legalised rape within marriage, according to the UN.

Hamid Karzai is on the hook for this, and there's no reason that he should have allowed this law to come to fruition.

Misogyny is one of the reasons that Afghanistan has been so backwards for so long and while the US liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban gave Afghan women a chance at seeing an improvement of their condition, this law shows that the tribal customs and Islamic law remain firmly entrenched. The systemic mistreatment of women means that half the population is subjugated and incapable of advancement. Women are cruelly treated, and this law institutionalizes that behavior.

Where's the Money?

As part of the $787 billion stimulus package pushed by President Obama, mass transit agencies around the nation were to get a boost. New York City's mass transit agencies got a total of $1.57 billion.

Where did that money go? It hasn't been spent, even though the City has several seriously lagging capital projects, to say nothing of projects that could have been accomplished in relatively short time to maintain and upgrade service in areas around the city that were in dire need.

Transit agencies in the city have received $1.57 billion in federal stimulus funds for capital projects, but so far have only spent a tiny fraction of the money that was intended to create jobs, a new study by the New York Building Congress has found.

"It has been almost six months since Congress and the Obama administration approved the stimulus package, yet close to nothing has been expended on the capital side," said Building Congress president Richard Anderson.

"We have seen a good deal of spending on workforce programs and health and social services, all of which are important. Unfortunately, those expenditures do not provide the same bang for the stimulus buck as direct construction spending."

Using data from the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, an umbrella group of transit agencies, the Building Congress found that virtually none of the stimulus funds for big-ticket transit projects has been spent.

Slightly less than half of the approved funding will go to two Transit Authority projects, the Fulton Street Transit Center, with $423 million, and the Second Avenue Subway, which gets $276 million, the report says.

Fulton Street Transit Hub remains little more than a hole in the ground, and is years behind schedule.

It's a block away from Ground Zero, and remains a black eye for the MTA, which wanted to turn it into a Grand Central Station for Lower Manhattan, where multiple train lines converge within blocks of Wall Street, and yet the maze of passageways are extremely difficult to navigate and several lines do not connect at all, even though they're within a block of each other.

Resurgence Seen In Militia Groups; Threats Against Obama Now Decreasing

Since the election of President Obama, the FBI and other organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center, have seen an increase in the activity in fringe groups, including various militia groups.

Racism may be playing a role in the spread, but the FBI and Secret Service are admittedly at a disadvantage since they really don't have a handle on the scope of the threat:

Word of the feds' new push to get a grip on fringe extremists - who faded into the background after the 9/11 attacks - came as a new watchdog report warned militias are making a racist "comeback" thanks to Obama's election.

"The face of the federal government today is black, and that has injected a whole new element into the militia movement," said Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's intelligence project, which issued the report.

The center's report said a rash of domestic terrorism cases recently, plus skyrocketing firearms and ammunition sales and an explosion of heated rhetoric by disgruntled militia types, is cause for worry.

Some hate groups also are opposing Obama's health care reform efforts as a form of Socialism, a top federal agent said.

After Obama's election, many counterterror officials snickered at the idea of a militia comeback from the 1990s. Some still insist the threat is overblown - and local.

But when Obama was sworn in, the FBI's Intelligence Directorate and Domestic Terrorism Section - which probes homegrown malcontents - asked joint-terrorism task forces nationwide to sniff around for hints of possible violent activity.

They are not spying on protected speech, officials emphasized.

"We don't know if there's an increased threat," a law enforcement source said.

"There's legitimate concern," said an agent inside the Justice Department who laughed off the threat months ago. "You're seeing more paranoia by the militias."

Author Ronald Kessler reports in his new book, "Inside the President's Secret Service," that threats against Obama are up 400% over threats to George W. Bush.

Government insiders told The News that threats are now decreasing. They noted that only one would-be assassin - Sara Jane Moore, who targeted President Ford in 1975 - was ever in the Secret Service's threat database beforehand.

The SPLC is the one issuing the call for increased vigilance.

I think it is warranted since the already overheated language and venom directed at the Administration has been ratcheted up in recent weeks in the course of the health care debate. Civility in the public discourse has broken down, and tone deaf politicians don't help matters, nor do statements by the Administration claiming that this must be rushed through swiftly, which would necessarily limit debate on changes that would affect the nation in profound ways.

None of this excuses the threats and increased chatter among militia groups.

The increase in death threats against the President is something that must be taken seriously by the FBI and Secret Service.

It is possible that these groups and those who were most threatened by President Obama taking office are coming to grips that he is indeed in office for the duration. That could explain the reduction in the number of threats against Obama in the recent period. Or, it could mean that they've now decided to lay low to avoid bringing more attention to themselves.

Like Father, Like Son?

For those following New York politics, Pedro Espada Jr., is the lightning rod for the clown circus that has described the Albany legislature and how the State Senate devolved into a abject mess. Espada, along with Hiram Monserrate, both Democrats, led a month long revolt against Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith (another Democrat). Their actions led to the GOP recovering control of the chamber for a month, although Democrats protested and claimed that Espada and Monserrate's actions never gave Democrats control.

Espada used the episode to force Smith out, insert John Sampson as a party leader, and had himself installed as a party leader himself as he switched affiliations back once he secured the changes to the Democrat leadership. It was always about his own power, not about the business of the people of the state of New York.

Apparently, he also managed to get his son, Pedro G. Espada, a cushy job at the State Senate as well. It was a $120,000 annual salary, and apparently it didn't require him to show up and may involve double dipping and nepotism.

I know what you're thinking.

Like father. Like son.

Pedro G. Espada's sudden departure as the Senate's "deputy director of intergovernmental relations" came as Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began looking into whether the elder Espada had arranged for the position in violation of state law.

The resignation also follows The Post's discovery yesterday that the younger Espada was MIA from his new state job -- which a source in Cuomo's office said triggered his decision to bail out.

Since last Thursday, when he was put on the state payroll, Espada was supposed to be working at 250 Broadway, where the state Senate has a suite of offices. But yesterday, The Post watched him arrive at the Soundview Health Center in The Bronx in his white GMC Yukon at about 10 a.m.

His appearance at the center, where he has worked for eight years -- and where his stepson told The Post Tuesday he was still working -- comes after a source said this week that he hadn't been seen at 250 Broadway.

Yesterday, the elder Espada walked outside the health center and insisted his son was no longer employed at Soundview as "director of environmental care" and was working full-time at his state post.

When pressed on why his son was in the building, the senator groped for an explanation: "His official date of resignation is when . . . I really don't know. He's cleaning out his personal stuff."

Soon after, the son called a Post photographer's cellphone and insisted he was in fact already at the Senate's offices at 250 Broadway.

Later that afternoon, Senate Democrats agreed to show The Post a room purported to be the younger Espada's office in the Senate's 19th-floor suite at 250 Broadway.

But Espada -- who arrived at the building only after being told that The Post was on the scene -- seemed unfamiliar with the layout of the office suite. At one point, he appeared to take direction to his office from a Senate spokesman who chaperoned the interview.

So, let's recap. Espada's son appeared to get a job in the State Senate paying $120,000 a year, had yet to show up for the job even though he was on the payroll, and was still apparently working at his former job, all while the Attorney General was looking into just how exactly he got the job.

I'm sure there's an innocent explanation for all this. Or not.

I'm leaning towards the "or not." Espada clearly doesn't think that rules and laws apply to him as per his conduct during the Senate upheaval. This is just more evidence of same.

Cuomo needs to put the hammer down on Espada and Monserrate and the other politicians who think that the law doesn't apply to them.

Distilling the Resistance To Its Essence

This entire debate on health care can boil down to the following:

What's in it for me.

For the 85% of Americans who have insurance, they want to know two basic things - will they get to keep their existing coverage, and how much more in taxes are they going to be hit with.

For the 15%, how much will it cost?

So far, the President has done nothing to explain how much this will cost - and that's the key factor in all this. He can't come up with a realistic figure unless he admits to higher taxes.

And as for just how many people are uninsured, this site claims 46 million under 65 are uninsured, which with a population size of 300 million means that 85% of all Americans are insured, either through Medicare, Medicaid (for those over 65), SCHIP or similar government insurance programs for poor and/or children, or private insurance. This multitrillion dollar overhaul would try to increase the insurance coverage to the remaining 15%.

Most of those who are uninsured are those who no longer get covered by their parents (18/21 yo cutoff) and haven't found full time jobs that include health insurance coverage. There's no breakdown of how many of that 46 million are illegal aliens, though there is a figure that the number of Hispanics who are uninsured, which is significantly higher than the percentage of uninsured among the general population.

The 85% want to know what's in this overhaul for them. They're the ones most likely to vote, and will be most likely to bear the burden of any cost shifting.

Flowing from that core question are additional questions, that explain how this program will supposedly work, what it will cost, and how it will change existing health care delivery.

These questions include the following:

1. How is it that you can put together a health care bill without knowing how to pay for it? As admitted by Members of Congress (Ben Cardin), no one knows how this will all be paid for. Wouldn't it make more sense to know first where the money comes from and design a system than try and throw everything and the kitchen sink and realize later you have to raise taxes?
2. Where are you drawing the line on the income level of those who will see an increase in their taxes as a result of this plan?
3. Is there a penalty for people opting not to obtain health insurance, and what is the thinking behind limiting personal choice in that fashion. After all, if that person doesn't want to pay for the health insurance, and is penalized, that's a back-door tax.
4. How much will this realistically cost, given that every other government program has gone staggeringly over cost projections?
5. How long will I have under my existing program until the government health care forces me into the public plan?
6. Why should public health care improve quality when we've got examples from other countries where care becomes far more restrictive and quality of care is substandard in US government health care programs like the Indian Health Service and the Veterans Administration?
7. Cash for clunkers anyone? If you can't manage a $1 (now $3) billion program adequately, how can anyone expect the government to do a better job with a significant portion of the US GNP. No one understood how many vehicles were in the pipeline for rebates or where the balance stood. The same can apply to the billions utilized under TARP. How can you manage costs when the government can't even keep track of the money on its books.
8. One of the big selling points you've made is that this will be cost effective and save money. How exactly can you make that argument when not even the Congressional Budget Office buys that argument?
9. 9) Medicare and Medicaid are prime examples of government health care programs run amok. They're tens of billions of dollars in debt, and yet this program would apparently expand both significantly, all while further constraining the charges - something has to give.
10. The final question goes to motive. What is the specific reasoning behind your demand that health care reform had to be completed by August recess? After all, access to health care isn't ending at that (or any point), and we've been living with this system for decades. The demand to have this change practically overnight, with limited debate - and without reading (as admitted by many members of Congress) suggests that the Administration is less than honest in what your ultimate aim is here.

Curing the health care system doesn't require killing the patient (the health care system). Yet, that's precisely what it looks like to many people who want to know why the Administration is pushing this as a crisis when few people are devoid of health care options.

President Obama has clearly stated that he will not sign any bill that will add to the deficit. Really? I'd like to see how he can keep that particular promise when he can't adequately explain how this proposal will be paid for in the current year, let alone adequately provide for funding in future years. It's simply unknowable, but based on prior government health care initiatives, one should take any claims of cost savings and/or cost containment with a grain of salt.

After all, we have clear examples of how the US government has failed to properly account for health care costs. Take the prescription drug program for example. The Bush Administration pushed through that program, and understated the costs by half.

If that's any guide, we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in understated costs (on a trillion dollar program) at a time when we simply cannot afford any such thing.

Still Think Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal Is Secure?

The Pakistani military and government doesn't want people to realize just how close they've come to having the Islamic terrorists breaking into their secure nuclear facilities.

There were three substantial attacks against nuclear installations in Pakistan. None of the three made much in the way of press, but the fallout could have been devastating if the terrorists succeeded (literally and figuratively).

The incidents, tracked by Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University in UK, include an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan's nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan's main nuclear weapons assembly.

These attacks have occurred even as Pakistan has taken several steps to secure and fortify its nuclear weapons against potential attacks, particularly by the United States and India, says Gregory.

In fact, the attacks have received so little attention that Peter Bergen, the eminent terrorism expert who reviewed Gregory's paper first published in West Point's Counter Terrorism Center Sentinel, said "he (Gregory) points out something that was news to me (and shouldn't have been) which is that a series of attacks on Pakistan's nuclear weapons facilities have already happened."

Pakistan insists that its nuclear weapons are fully secured and there is no chance of them falling into the hands of the extremists or terrorists.

But Gregory, while detailing the steps Islamabad has taken to protect them against Indian and US attacks, asks if the geographical location of Pakistan's principle nuclear weapons infrastructure, which is mainly in areas dominated by al-Qaida and Taliban, makes it more vulnerable to internal attacks.

I've raised serious questions about Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and its security in the face of the Islamist threat. Al Qaeda, possessing such weapons, could use the threat of nuclear blackmail to have its way with much of South Asia and indeed the rest of the world.

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is not nearly as secure as the Pakistanis would like the world to believe, and we are only as safe as the least secure nuclear arsenal when it comes to the threat of terrorists gaining access and control of a nuclear weapon.

UPDATE:
I contacted Bill Roggio, who runs the Long War Journal, for his take on the situation, and he came away unsurprised by this revelation. In fact, he noted that he wrote that al Qaeda and the Taliban were specifically targeting nuclear installations back in 2007 and 2008.

He also notes that he doesn't have a feel for whether the Pakistanis have improved security since those attacks.

Palestinian Spin Cycle

Fatah held elections today to fill slots in its 21-member Central Committee.

The Palestinian Fatah movement elected a group of younger leaders to its top council on Tuesday, bolstering its credentials as the West's best hope for Mideast peace, according to preliminary voting results.

Fatah's first conference in two decades, while plagued by the movement's characteristic wrangling and intrigue, appeared to rejuvenate the pre-eminent Palestinian organization at a critical moment, weeks before President Barack Obama is to unveil a comprehensive plan to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Unofficial results indicated that Fatah's younger generation won a majority of seats on the Central Committee, said polling officials, who declined to be named ahead of the official announcement.

Rejuvenate Fatah? Really? The photo accompanying the AP report shows none other than mass murderer Marwan Barghouti. He's responsible for the deaths of many Israelis and an Israeli civil court found him guilty of murder of five Israelis, while finding insufficient evidence to tie him to 33 other attacks resulting in deaths of Israelis.

This is who Palestinians in Fatah honor. This is the leadership that they ascribe to?

He was one of those winning a seat on the Committee, even as he does his time in Israeli jails for his murderous ways.

Jibril Rajoub also won a seat. He's a former aide to the late Yasser Arafat who led several crackdowns against Hamas.

These are the new faces? Mohammed Dahlan isn't a new name either. He's been behind the scenes in pushing US strategy, working to get Arafathttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif to the negotiating table for Oslo and Camp David in 2000, but most recently to displace Hamas in Gaza. That worked out real well, as Hamas threw Fatah out in a matter of days in 2006's Palestinian civil war.

In other words, this new group doesn't have much of a new outlook either. These high profile thugs have a history of dealing harshly with Hamas, but haven't given up the ghost of Israel's destruction either. This is the group of thugs that Fatah thinks can win back Gaza, or at least stem the tide of Hamas influence in the West Bank.

This group isn't so much interested in peace with Israel as revolution. That's going to come as a harsh reality for the Obama Administration, which hopes to resuscitate the peace process, even as it's all too evident that Israel lacks a partner in peace with which to negotiate.

As for Hamas, they're up to their old tricks, including taking three ambulances provided by UNRWA. Hamas claims that UNRWA lacked sufficient documentation. One should recall that Hamas has repeatedly used UN facilities as shields from which to launch attacks - firing rockets and mortars in close proximity to UN schools and facilities so as to get Israel to return fire hitting those facilities and causing Israel grief with the UN.

UNRWA ambulances have been shanghaied in the past, and Hamas and other terrorists, including Hizbullah, have used UN vehicles to mask their operations and launch sneak attacks against Israel.

For its part, the UNRWA claims that the Hamas and IDF reports are untrue.

UPDATE:
Gee, I can't possibly imagine why Israelis might think that the "calm" isn't going to last. Let's ignore the mortar attacks at Kissufim Junction yesterday, and the incessant calls from Fatah and Hamas for Israel's destruction.

On My Nightstand: Why Evolution Is True

After finishing the last book on the train ride home today, I'm up to the next read. That would be Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne.

The evolution versus creationist debate has come up around the nation, usually under the guise of intelligent design and proponents trying to push that into science classroom curricula.

Several possible GOP candidates in 2012 have positions that raise questions about their commitment promote science in classrooms by pushing intelligent design, including Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.

While I don't think that this necessarily disqualifies them from running for office, pushing intelligent design, which is hardly testable under the scientific method, is antithetical to teaching kids the skills and facts needed to compete in a global economy.

Pelosi and Hoyer Opine On Un-American Dissent To Health Care Steamroller?

So, USA Today published an op-ed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

That they published the op-ed isn't unusual.

What is unusual is what they said and claimed.

In the meantime, as members of Congress spend time at home during August, they are talking with their constituents about reform. The dialogue between elected representatives and constituents is at the heart of our democracy and plays an integral role in assuring that the legislation we write reflects the genuine needs and concerns of the people we represent.

However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted "Just say no!" drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion.

Let the facts be heard

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.

Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.

The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice. It will allow every American who likes his or her current plan to keep it. And it will free doctors and patients to make the health decisions that make the most sense, not the most profits for insurance companies.

I will tackle this in turn.

First is the actual claim that opposing views are being drowned out. That has been witnessed on several videos from town hall meetings where Representatives have found crowds hostile to the evasive answers provided by said represenatives. They can't honestly answer basic questions about the health care plans being proffered, and some in those crowds have gotten heated.

Then, there's the astounding claim that such dissent is Un-American.

Really?

Would that be like the crazies in Code Pink who routinely sought to disrupt Republicans speaking in Congress or other leftists in and around the country seeking to do the same to President Bush? After all, current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once opined that dissent is the highest form of patriotism and that they have the right to question the Administration.



I guess that now the Democrats are in charge, dissent from the left's positions aren't nearly as patriotic. How quaint.

None of the dissent and heated town hall meetings means that anyone on either side of the aisle has a right to engage in violence, or threaten to violence. There is a way to handle matters in a civil matter, but those boundaries are being pushed from all sides.

That's pushing the actual debate on the issues to the sidelines and allowing radicals to dictate what gets coverage, rather than showing the empty promises of the Administration's claims to savings as a result of imposing the health care plans.

Now, as to the claims that the opposition is somehow misrepresenting what is stated in the health care bill. It's quite easy for Pelosi and Hoyer to claim that things are misrepresented, but that misrepresentation includes the Administration and supporters of the bill. This massive legislation continues to undergo amendments, but key components should raise serious questions over core components of Obama's claims - namely that you'll be able to keep your existing health care plan. You might be able to keep your plan now, but what about next year (after your annual renewals?) What about companies that are exempt from ERISA?

More importantly, how is all of this going to be paid for when the CBO and other critics (nonpartisan and partisan) don't know how any of the numbers add up unless there are significant taxes imposed on the middle class (and surely below the threshold claimed by President Obama on the campaign trail).

No, Reps. Hoyer and Pelosi clearly want to undermine debate on the matter, and the Administration's attempts to rush through this legislation with a minimum of debate shows that there is a fundamental dishonesty by these leaders and an intent to deceive the American people about the true costs of the health care plans under consideration.

The fact is that most Americans are happy with their existing health insurance and health care plans. Access to health care is provided, but many question the cost. This health care bill intends to rework the entire system to promote "access" to a small portion of people in the US, and it is by no means clear that it will result in more accessibility to care, let alone maintain the existing level and quality of care.

Examples from overseas suggest that government mandated health care results in lower quality of care, and examples from US states' experiments in government health care has resulted in severely underestimating the costs, which must be made up through higher taxes or curtailing benefits.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 73

This shouldn't come as a surprise. The delayed deconstruction of the former Deutsche Bank building is going to cost another $100 million.

Continuing delays in the deadly task of taking down the Deutsche Bank tower at Ground Zero have driven up the cost of rebuilding the World Trade Center by an estimated $100 million, sources familiar with the two projects told The Post.

The former 42-story bank tower, heavily damaged by the toppled Twin Towers on 9/11 and filled with toxins, will take nearly three years longer than originally planned to clean and remove. It's now slated to be done sometime next spring.

While the building does not sit in the trade center site, its property is slated to be the location for key infrastructure, including a vehicle screening center, that must be in place in order to finish the office towers and transit hub.

The Port Authority recently allocated an extra $6.5 million to build a temporary wall next to the building so that some work could begin before the entire tower is removed, hopefully speeding up some of the crucial construction.

The delays on that portion of the site means that other infrastructure within Ground Zero proper is delayed. That affects schedules and increases costs for construction.

You can blame incompetence, mismanagement, and negligence on the part of those responsible for overseeing the deconstruction of the damaged building, including the LMDC and the contractors - John Galt Company.

Meanwhile, State Senator Bill Perkins is expected to hold a town hall meeting next month to go over the slow pace of construction at Ground Zero. Expect the Port Authority to get quite defensive about that, and they'll be sure to trot out the fact that they met many of their benchmarks for the quarter ending July 1. The Port Authority would hope that people ignore that the Port Authority incurred significant penalties for failing to turn over portions of the site running along Greenwich and Church to Larry Silverstein until a few days ago. Or, that the foot-dragging on the demolition of Fiterman Hall and the former Deutsche Bank building has gone on for years.

The Freedom Tower is making headway in fits and starts, and one need only look at the gleaming skyscrapers that rose just outside Ground Zero after Ground Zero was prepared for new construction. A new residential tower is being fitted out with glass just south of the former Deutsche Bank building, and the Goldman Sachs building diagonally across from the Freedom Tower (1WTC) is nearly finished as well. Both buildings were started well after the cornerstone for the Freedom Tower, and yet both will be completed and occupied well before.

That's absolutely inexcusable.

UPDATE:
Photos of Ground Zero, with the Freedom Tower (1WTC) as seen from the Vesey Street Bridge across West Street from earlier today. The first photo shows just how close 1WTC runs to West Street and the progress made to date:

 

 

 

This last photo is of the crowd that gathers in a break in the corrugated metal blocking views of Ground Zero. It's where I took the two previous photos, which show one of the immense steel girders encased in concrete that will form the base of the exterior wall of 1WTC and the core of the tower slowly inching its way skyward. The photo before that shows the 9/11 Memorial/Museum steel deck that runs flush to street level. It's hoped that the 9/11 Memorial/Museum will be open in time for the 10th anniversary.

 

All the photos were taken using my Canon Rebel XTi with the Tamron 28-300mm XR Di VC (image stabilizer).

Hudson River Air Collision Renews Calls For Increased Regulation

The air collision between a tourist helicopter and a private plane killing nine people has once again sparked a debate over the regulation of low flying aircraft in and around New York City.

The last time this debate occurred was in the aftermath of the death of Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle whose plane crashed into a high rise apartment building, killing Lidle and his instructor.

This crash occurred over the Hudson River near Hoboken, and nine people were killed in all. Seven people have so far been recovered from the waters of the Hudson River, and the NYPD and emergency personnel continue searching the murky waters for the other two victims, along with the Piper Cub airplane. The helicopter was recovered yesterday, and it's hoped that the aircraft can give clues as to why the crash occurred.

Many in the industry and critics content that this was an accident waiting to happen. They're right as the air above the Hudson is a heavily trafficked corridor for tour operators flying tourists around New York Harbor to see the sights, including the Statue of Liberty and Ground Zero.

Normally, aircraft flying below 1,100 feet are not required to make contact with New York regional air traffic controllers, and it's possible that this crash may require additional regulation of aircraft flying in the area.

"We're playing a game of Russian roulette . . . There are 25,000 helicopter trips a year, and no one has to talk to anyone," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

He said that at the very least, pilots should be required to use the frequency and also talk to air-traffic controllers, regardless of their altitude.

Small planes and helicopters also should be required to have traffic collision avoidance systems, or TCAS, which notify pilots of approaching aircraft, Stringer said. They cost from $10,000 to $30,000 apiece.

The Hudson, which is less than three-quarters of a mile wide, serves as an air highway for helicopters, police patrols and small planes.

"That's not a lot of space," said Ray Adams, president of the air-traffic controllers union at Newark Airport. "And it's not unusual at all for us to have 10 to 20 aircraft between the George Washington Bridge and the Statue of Liberty."

Pilots can fly over the Hudson without permission if they stay below 1,100 feet so they don't interfere with jets flying to and from the city's three major airports.

But Dan Rose, a lawyer and pilot who has flown the Hudson, said helicopters should be separated from fixed-wing aircraft to avoid a repeat of Saturday's disaster.

Helicopters should be limited to 500 feet and fixed-wing craft to 1,100, he said.

It's a good idea for someone to manage the airspace, but the air traffic controllers in the region are already overtaxed with the commercial aircraft flying into the three major regional airports - and whose aircraft routinely fly over or near the Hudson at a much higher level.

In addition to the eminently sensible idea of separating fixed wing and helicopter flights by altitude, they should probably institute a corridor on each side of the Hudson to account for North- and South-bound traffic. This way, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft are segregated and the flow managed in a better way, improving safety on the ground and in the air.

The problem is that we still don't know the precise reason why the Piper Cub was in this particular airspace and why there was no communication between the helicopter and the plane.

UPDATE:
Reports indicate that the Piper Cub may have been located under the Hudson River.

UPDATE:

 

The photo shows ongoing efforts by a Coast Guard ship and a NYPD boat in the vicinity of where the plane and helicopter crashed. It was taken from Battery Park City using my Canon Rebel XTi with the Tamron 28-300mm XR Di VC (image stabilizer).

What Does This Say About Cuban Health Care?

Cuba's running out of toilet paper.

Cuba, in the grip of a serious economic crisis, is running short of toilet paper and may not get sufficient supplies until the end of the year, officials with state-run companies said on Friday.

Officials said they were lowering the prices of 24 basic goods to help Cubans get through the difficulties provoked in part by the global financial crisis and three destructive hurricanes that struck the island last year.

Cuba's financial reserves have been depleted by increased spending for imports and reduced export income, which has forced the communist-led government to take extraordinary measures to keep the economy afloat.

"The corporation has taken all the steps so that at the end of the year there will be an important importation of toilet paper," an official with state conglomerate Cimex said on state-run Radio Rebelde.

The shipment will enable the state-run company "to supply this demand that today is presenting problems," he said.

I know what you're thinking.

They're going to have to adopt the Sheryl Crow approach (collective EWWWW).

After all these decades, the regime in Havana will still fight reality at every turn. They'll fight tooth and nail to impose their way with prices on basic goods and services, exacerbating shortages with price controls. Just when you thought that Cuba's situation couldn't get any worse, it finally hits the crapper.

And what does this say about the so-called vaunted Cuban health care system. If they can't even maintain stocks of toilet paper, how can they be providing even adequate health care? Once again, the lie of Cuban health care has been revealed. Sure, everyone has access to "health care" and it's "free", but the reality is that it's substandard (except for those who come to Cuba via medical tourism, and which generates significant income for the regime).

On My Nightstand: The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel: How to Arrive with Your Dignity, Sanity, and Wallet Intact

The latest book to make my nightstand is The Wall Street Journal Guide to Power Travel: How to Arrive with Your Dignity, Sanity, and Wallet Intact by Scott Mccartney.

It's chock full of tips and tidbits on how to maximize your trip dollars, whether you're a business traveler or a leisure vacationer. In both cases, it explains how airlines price tickets (it's needlessly complex and undermines the ability to lure customers) and how to maximize affinity program points.

So, if you're planning a trip, this is a good read.